XBMC version 11, including builds up to the 2012-11-04 nightly release, contains a path traversal vulnerability in its embedded HTTP server. When accessed via HTTP Basic Authentication, the server fails to properly sanitize URI input, allowing authenticated users to request files outside the intended document root. An attacker can exploit this flaw to read arbitrary files from the host filesystem, including sensitive configuration or credential files.
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.