CVE-2026-23907 PUBLISHED

Apache PDFBox Examples: Path Traversal in PDFBox ExtractEmbeddedFiles Example Code

Assigner: apache
Reserved: 19.01.2026 Published: 10.03.2026 Updated: 10.03.2026

This issue affects the ExtractEmbeddedFiles example in Apache PDFBox: from 2.0.24 through 2.0.36, from 3.0.0 through 3.0.7.

The ExtractEmbeddedFiles example contains a path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) because the filename that is obtained from PDComplexFileSpecification.getFilename() is appended to the extraction path.

Users who have copied this example into their production code should review it to ensure that the extraction path is acceptable. The example has been changed accordingly, now the initial path and the extraction paths are converted into canonical paths and it is verified that extraction path contains the initial path. The documentation has also been adjusted.

Product Status

Vendor Apache Software Foundation
Product Apache PDFBox Examples
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 2.0.24 to 2.0.36 (incl.)
  • affected from 3.0.0 to 3.0.7 (incl.)

Credits

  • Joakim Bülow (Neo4j Security Team) finder

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') CWE