CVE-2026-33929 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.3) Path Traversal vulnerability in org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples. A fix is available for org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apache PDFBox Examples: Path Traversal in PDFBox ExtractEmbeddedFiles Example Code
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2026-33929.
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.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples☕org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examplesReal-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
Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in Apache PDFBox Examples.
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.
Users are recommended to update to version 2.0.37 or 3.0.8 once available. Until then, they should apply the fix provided in GitHub PR 427.
The ExtractEmbeddedFiles example contained a path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) mentioned in CVE-2026-23907. However the change in the releases 2.0.36 and 3.0.7 is flawed because it doesn't consider the file path separator. Because of that, a user having writing rights on /home/ABC could be victim to a malicious PDF resulting in a write attempt to any path starting with /home/ABC, e.g. "/home/ABCDEF".
Users who have copied this example into their production code should apply the mentioned change. The example has been changed accordingly and is available in the project repository.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples | ≥ 2.0.24&&< 2.0.37 | 2.0.37org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples:2.0.37 |
| ☕Maven | org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.0.8 | 3.0.8org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples:3.0.8 |
Affected Products
pdfboxapacheDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox-examples to 2.0.37 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-33929 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-33929 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.