The keyword you’ve provided, file:///../../../../home/*/ .aws/credentials, isn’t just a string of text—it is a classic example of a Path Traversal (or Directory Traversal) attack string used to target cloud infrastructure.
home-2F-2A-2F translates to /home/*/, where the * (asterisk) is a wildcard meant to catch any user's home directory. Security Assessment
The payload -file-..-2F..-2F..-2F..-2Fhome-2F-2A-2F.aws-2Fcredentials can be decoded and analyzed as follows: -file-..-2F..-2F..-2F..-2Fhome-2F-2A-2F.aws-2Fcredentials
Privilege Escalation: If the keys belong to an administrator or a service account with high permissions, the attacker effectively becomes the owner of that cloud environment.
A typical security write-up for this vulnerability would follow this chain: The keyword you’ve provided, file:///
If an attacker can manipulate this file path, they might gain unauthorized access to your AWS credentials, which could lead to:
Identify gaps in existing knowledge that your paper can fill. A typical security write-up for this vulnerability would
WAF Rules: Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with pre-configured rules to detect and block common path traversal patterns.
If the app uses the obfuscated string ..-2F..-2F..-2Fhome-2F-2A-2F.aws-2Fcredentials, it may be an attempt to bypass: