What this actually is.
Technical background, root cause, and affected surface.
The NextGEN Gallery plugin before 2.1.15 for WordPress allows ../ Directory Traversal in path selection.
- Vendor
- NextGen
- Affected Product
- NextGen Gallery
- CVE
- CVE-2015-9538
- Securin ID
- 2015-CSW-08-1003
- Status
- Fixed
- Date
- February 14, 2015
- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS Score
- 6.5
- Vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- CWE
- CWE-22
From one request
to root shell.
Reproduced in a sandboxed environment. Requires only LAN or WiFi adjacency.
Note: Similarly, the user can fetch any details from any website hosted on the same server.
What an attacker does to you.
Post-exploitation outcomes mapped to CVSS impact metrics.
An attacker will abuse this vulnerability to view files that should otherwise not be accessible.
Fix it. In this order.
A runbook, not a checklist. Sequence matters — assume compromise before you act.
Download the latest updated version of the Nextgen plugin and apply the patch as per vendor advisory.
disclose@securin.ioVendors moved in days.
Attackers in hours.
Reconstructed from vendor advisories, CISA bulletins, and Securin research records.
Reported to Vendor
Acknowledged by Vendor.
Publicly Released due to no response from Vendor
CVE Assigned
Disclosed 192 days after discovery
Cite, verify, go deeper.
Primary sources — NVD, CISA KEV, and machine-readable IoC feed.