VulnerabilityPublished 20 Sep 2022Updated 29 May 2025

CVE-2022-38340: Safe Software FME Server · Path Traversal

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 9.1 Critical.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

9.1Critical

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 1.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 71% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AC:L/AV:N/A:H/C:H/I:H/PR:H/S:C/UI:N

Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Vector: Network
Availability: High
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
Privileges Required: High
Scope: Changed
User Interaction: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Privileges Required: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 20 Sep 2022
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
n/a n/a	Affected <=2022.0.0.2	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Immediate mitigation steps include restricting access to the FME Server, especially the 'fmedataupload' component, to trusted and authenticated users only, ideally through network segmentation and firewall rules. Organizations should enforce the principle of least privilege, ensuring that only necessary users have high privilege levels required to exploit this vulnerability. Monitoring and logging access to the server and the upload component should be enhanced to detect suspicious activity indicative of exploitation attempts. Since no official patches were available at the time of disclosure, organizations should contact Safe Software for updates or apply any vendor-recommended workarounds. Additionally, implementing Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block path traversal patterns can provide a protective layer. Regularly auditing file system permissions and integrity can help identify unauthorized changes early. Finally, organizations should prepare incident response plans specific to this vulnerability to quickly contain and remediate any exploitation.

Description

Safe Software FME Server v2021.2.5, v2022.0.0.2 and below was discovered to contain a Path Traversal vulnerability via the component fmedataupload.

Impact

For European organizations, especially those in sectors such as government, utilities, transportation, and environmental management that rely on FME Server for spatial data workflows, this vulnerability poses a significant risk. Exploitation could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive geospatial datasets, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information (PII). The ability to modify or delete files could disrupt critical data processing pipelines, causing operational downtime and impacting service availability. Given the critical nature of the vulnerability and the potential for lateral movement within networks, attackers could leverage this flaw to escalate privileges or establish persistence. This could result in broader network compromise, data exfiltration, or sabotage of critical infrastructure systems. The absence of known exploits currently does not diminish the threat, as attackers may develop exploits rapidly once details are public. European organizations must consider compliance implications under GDPR if personal data is exposed or compromised due to this vulnerability.

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
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.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 8 Jul 2025, 03:10 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-22

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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