WildFly Core: Path traversal in deployment name enables privilege escalation
Summary
A path traversal flaw (CWE-22) in the wildfly-core library, which WildFly and JBoss EAP use to manage deployments, lets an attacker with the Deployer role access files outside the deployment directory. The attacker can delete arbitrary directories or write files with arbitrary content, such as replacing the management credential store, and so gain the management SuperUser role. Exploitation requires a valid account with the Deployer role, but the impact is total.
Affected
- Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 and 8 (according to the vendor record)
- Red Hat Fuse 7
- Red Hat Single Sign-On 7
- Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack: listed as unaffected
- Affected versions: Unknown.
Fixed in
Unknown. Check the Red Hat advisory and the wildfly-core release notes.
Workaround
- Red Hat: no mitigation is available that meets its criteria.
- Practical measures (not vendor guidance): reduce the number of accounts with the Deployer role and restrict access to the management interfaces to administrator networks.
Exploitation
- CISA SSVC: exploitation none, automatable no, technical impact total.
- No public exploit and no evidence of in-the-wild exploitation were found at the time of research.
Our recommendation
- Identify all WildFly, JBoss EAP, Fuse and Single Sign-On instances and check their versions.
- Apply the vendor fix as soon as it is available, starting with internet-facing systems.
- Reduce Deployer role assignments and review role mappings so that new users do not receive SuperUser rights by default.
- Keep management interfaces off untrusted networks and log and review deployment activity.
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- Red Hat CVE record CVE-2026-85634 access.redhat.com
- Red Hat Bugzilla 2528476 bugzilla.redhat.com
- NVD record CVE-2026-85634 (via Vulners) vulners.com
- OpenCVE CVE-2026-85634 app.opencve.io
- VulDB entry 420720 vuldb.com
- Upstream wildfly-core pull request 6953 github.com
- wildfly-core releases github.com
- WildFly 9 RBAC documentation docs.jboss.org
Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 31 Oct 2026, 16:33.
Original description (NVD)
A flaw was found in the ContentRepositoryImpl.copyExplodedContent function of the wildfly-core library, which is used by WildFly and JBoss EAP to manage server deployments. The issue occurs when the library processes an unsanitized deployment name. Due to a missing containment check, an attacker with the Deployer RBAC role can use path traversal sequences to access files outside the restricted deployment directory. This can allow the attacker to delete arbitrary directories or create files with arbitrary content, leading to a full privilege escalation to the management SuperUser role.
Sources
The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:
- NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
- CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
- CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
- FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
- Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
- PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
- Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
- Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
- Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS data © FIRST.org.
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