CVE-2023-34478 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Path Traversal vulnerability in org.apache.shiro:shiro-web. A fix is available for org.apache.shiro:shiro-web — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apache Shiro before 1.12.0, or 2.0.0-alpha-3, may be susceptible to a path traversal attack when used together with APIs or other web frameworks that route requests based on non-normalized requests.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-34478.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
org.apache.shiro:shiro-web☕org.apache.shiro:shiro-webReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Apache Shiro, before 1.12.0 or 2.0.0-alpha-3, may be susceptible to a path traversal attack that results in an authentication bypass when used together with APIs or other web frameworks that route requests based on non-normalized requests.
Mitigation: Update to Apache Shiro 1.12.0+ or 2.0.0-alpha-3+
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.shiro:shiro-web | all versions | 1.12.0org.apache.shiro:shiro-web:1.12.0 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.shiro:shiro-web | ≥ 2.0.0-alpha-1&&< 2.0.0-alpha-3 | 2.0.0-alpha-3org.apache.shiro:shiro-web:2.0.0-alpha-3 |
Affected Products
shiroapacheDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.shiro:shiro-web, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.shiro:shiro-web to 1.12.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-34478 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-34478 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.