GHSA-87hc-h4r5-73f7

Werkzeug safe_join() allows Windows special device names with compound extensions

At a glance

Published
Updated
CVE
CVE-2026-21860
Aliases
PYSEC-2026-2044
CVSS_V3
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS_V4
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Description

Werkzeug's `safe_join` function allows path segments with Windows device names that have file extensions or trailing spaces. On Windows, there are special device names such as `CON`, `AUX`, etc that are implicitly present and readable in every directory. Windows still accepts them with any file extension, such as `CON.txt`, or trailing spaces such as `CON `. This was previously reported as https://github.com/pallets/werkzeug/security/advisories/GHSA-hgf8-39gv-g3f2, but the fix failed to account for compound extensions such as `CON.txt.html` or trailing spaces. It also missed some additional special names. `send_from_directory` uses `safe_join` to safely serve files at user-specified paths under a directory. If the application is running on Windows, and the requested path ends with a special device name, the file will be opened successfully, but reading will hang indefinitely.

Affected packages

PackageVersions
PyPI · werkzeugintroduced 0, fixed 3.1.5

References

Sources

SourceLicence
OSV.devCC-BY 4.0 — GitHub Advisory Database