CVE-2023-27577: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

flarum is a forum software package for building communities. In versions prior to 1.7.0 an admin account which has already been compromised by an attacker may use a vulnerability in the LESS parser which can be exploited to read sensitive files on the server through the use of path traversal techniques. An attacker can achieve this by providing an absolute path to a sensitive file in the custom LESS setting, which the LESS parser will then read. For example, an attacker could use the following code to read the contents of the /etc/passwd file on a linux machine. The scope of what files is vulnerable will depend on the permissions given to the running flarum process. The vulnerability has been addressed in version 1.7. Users should upgrade to this version to mitigate the vulnerability. Users unable to upgrade may mitigate the vulnerability by ensuring that their admin accounts are secured with strong passwords and follow other best practices for account security. Additionally, users can limit the exposure of sensitive files on the server by implementing appropriate file permissions and access controls at the operating system level.