notepad-plus-plus Notepad++ up to 8.9.6 Path Normalization session.xml backupFilePath path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in notepad-plus-plus Notepad++ up to 8.9.6 and classified as problematic. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the file session.xml of the component Path Normalization. Executing a manipulation of the argument backupFilePath can lead to path traversal. This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2026-52886. The attack is restricted to local execution. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic was found in notepad-plus-plus Notepad++ up to 8.9.6. This vulnerability affects an unknown code of the file session.xml of the component Path Normalization. The manipulation of the argument backupFilePath with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality. CVE summarizes:

Notepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. Prior to 8.9.7, Notepad++ validates the backupFilePath attribute from session.xml with std::wstring::starts_with against the expected backup directory without path normalization, allowing parent-directory sequences during snapshot-mode restoration to read an arbitrary user-readable file outside the backup directory into an editor tab. This issue is fixed in version 8.9.7.

The advisory is available at github.com. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-52886 since 06/08/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. Local access is required to approach this attack. Successful exploitation requires user interaction by the victim. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit. This vulnerability is assigned to T1006 by the MITRE ATT&CK project.

By approaching the search of inurl:session.xml it is possible to find vulnerable targets with Google Hacking.

Upgrading to version 8.9.7 eliminates this vulnerability.

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Productinfo

Type

• Document Reader Software

Vendor

• notepad-plus-plus

Name

• Notepad++

Version

• 8.9.0
• 8.9.1
• 8.9.2
• 8.9.3
• 8.9.4
• 8.9.5
• 8.9.6

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

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• 🔒
• 🔒

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