rspec/rules/S2083/impact.adoc

=== What is the potential impact?

A web application is vulnerable to path injection and an attacker is able to
exploit it.

The files that can be affected are limited by the permission of the process
that runs the application. Worst case scenario: the process runs with root
privileges on Linux, and therefore any file can be affected.

Below are some real-world scenarios that illustrate some impacts of an attacker
exploiting the vulnerability.

==== Override or delete arbitrary files

The injected path component tampers with the location of a file the application
is supposed to delete or write into. The vulnerability is exploited to remove
or corrupt files that are critical for the application or for the system to
work properly.

It could result in data being lost or the application being unavailable.

==== Read arbitrary files

The injected path component tampers with the location of a file the application
is supposed to read and output. The vulnerability is exploited to leak the
content of arbitrary files from the file system, including sensitive files like
SSH private keys.