# CVE-2018-16836: Rubedo - Directory Traversal

> Live exploitation tracking for CVE-2018-16836 by the CrowdSec Live Exploit Tracker, built from real-world attack data crowdsourced from CrowdSec's global network.

Page: https://tracker.crowdsec.net/cves/CVE-2018-16836

## Key facts

- **Exploitation phase:** Background Noise. Continuous low-level scanning or exploitation attempts are observed, mostly opportunistic and automated.
- **CVSS score:** 9.8
- **Public exploit available:** Yes
- **Affected products:** Rubedo
- **Weaknesses:** CWE-22 (Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal'))
- **Tags:** cms

## Description

Rubedo through 3.4.0 contains a Directory Traversal vulnerability in the theme component, allowing unauthenticated attackers to read and execute arbitrary files outside of the service root path, as demonstrated by a /theme/default/img/%2e%2e/..//etc/passwd URI.

## CrowdSec analysis

[CVE-2018-16836](https://euvd.enisa.europa.eu/vulnerability/CVE-2018-16836) is a critical directory traversal vulnerability in Rubedo that allows unauthenticated attackers to access and potentially execute files outside the intended service root path through crafted requests.

CrowdSec has been tracking this vulnerability and its exploits since 2nd of April 2025.

CrowdSec network data shows that most actors exploiting CVE-2018-16836 rely on broad, untargeted scans with minimal filtering. The activity is largely automated and opportunistic in nature.
Telemetry from the CrowdSec network also shows that exploitation activity for CVE-2018-16836 remains steady week-over-week. Attack volumes are consistent with long-term trends, indicating sustained interest from threat actors. CVE-2018-16836 continues to be an active part of the threat landscape and will likely remain this way for the forseeable future.

Attackers are focusing on URLs containing `/theme/default/img/` with directory traversal patterns to exploit this issue.

## Timeline

- 2018-09-11: CVE Published. CVE-2018-16836 is published to NVD.
- 2025-04-02: Rule Released. CrowdSec releases a rule to detect CVE-2018-16836 exploitation attempts against the CrowdSec Network.
- 2025-04-07: CrowdSec First Seen. CrowdSec observes in-the-wild exploitation of CVE-2018-16836 for the first time.

## References

- https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/http/cves/2018/CVE-2018-16836.yaml
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/45385/

## Live exploitation data

The [Live Exploit Tracker page](https://tracker.crowdsec.net/cves/CVE-2018-16836) follows observed exploitation activity for CVE-2018-16836. [Request an API key](https://tracker.crowdsec.net/request-api-key) for full access to its exploitation timeline, attacking IP addresses and blocklists.