CVE-2026-40526 in Personal Management System
Summary
by MITRE • 08/27/2026
Volmarg Personal Management System contains a path traversal vulnerability that allows authenticated attackers to read arbitrary files by supplying absolute filesystem paths to the GET /public/get-file/{path} endpoint. The path route parameter is passed directly to file_get_contents() without canonicalization against a permitted base directory, enabling attackers to retrieve sensitive files accessible to the PHP-FPM worker process without using directory traversal sequences.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/27/2026
The Volmarg Personal Management System suffers from a critical insecure direct object reference vulnerability that manifests as path traversal, allowing authenticated users to access arbitrary files on the underlying server operating system. This flaw resides within the GET /public/get-file/{path} endpoint, which is designed to serve specific documents or assets requested by legitimate users. However, the implementation fails to enforce strict input validation and canonicalization of the file path parameter provided in the URL. Instead of restricting access to a predefined base directory containing only authorized public resources, the application passes the user-supplied path directly into PHP's file_get_contents function without sanitizing it against absolute filesystem paths. This architectural oversight means that an attacker does not need to employ traditional directory traversal sequences such as dot-dot-slash or encoded variations thereof; simply providing an absolute path like /etc/passwd is sufficient to bypass any intended access controls and retrieve the contents of files located anywhere on the file system where the PHP-FPM worker process has read permissions.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability represents a classic case of improper input validation leading to unauthorized data exposure. The root cause lies in the lack of path canonicalization before file inclusion or reading operations. In secure software development practices, any user-supplied file path must be resolved to its absolute form and then checked against an allowlist or a strict base directory prefix. By omitting this step, the application effectively trusts untrusted input as a valid location for resource retrieval. This behavior aligns with CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory, which describes vulnerabilities where software does not properly neutralize special elements within file names or paths that could cause files to be located outside of the intended directory. The absence of these safeguards allows the application logic to deviate from its security boundary, treating any readable path as valid input for data retrieval operations.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe, particularly because it requires only authentication rather than complete unauthenticated access. While an attacker must first compromise or obtain credentials for a legitimate user account, authenticated attackers can leverage this flaw to exfiltrate sensitive configuration files, source code containing hardcoded secrets such as database passwords or API keys, and potentially other system-critical data stored on the server. The ability to read arbitrary files accessible to the PHP-FPM worker process significantly expands the attack surface beyond simple information disclosure. It enables further exploitation vectors including credential harvesting for lateral movement within a network environment or extraction of cryptographic material that could compromise encrypted communications or user data at rest. This aligns with ATT&CK technique T1083: File and Directory Discovery, where adversaries search local system directories to gather intelligence necessary for subsequent phases of an intrusion campaign.
To mitigate this vulnerability, immediate remediation efforts should focus on implementing strict input validation and path canonicalization mechanisms within the application code. Developers must ensure that all file paths are resolved using realpath or equivalent functions to eliminate symbolic links and relative path components before processing. Furthermore, a robust allowlist approach should be adopted where only files explicitly located within a designated public directory can be served by this endpoint. Any request attempting to access a path outside of this allowed base directory must be rejected with an appropriate error response rather than proceeding with the file read operation. Additionally, implementing principle of least privilege for the PHP-FPM worker process will limit the scope of damage even if such vulnerabilities are exploited in other contexts. Regular security audits and static code analysis tools configured to detect insecure direct object references can help identify similar flaws across the application codebase before deployment to production environments.