Executive brief
This advisory has been withdrawn because it does not describe a valid vulnerability. The original claim was that Open WebUI's model upload endpoint failed to validate user-supplied filenames, allowing attackers with administrative privileges to overwrite arbitrary system files through directory traversal. However, upon review, this issue was determined to not be a genuine security vulnerability.
Technical details
The withdrawn advisory originally described a path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) in the `/models/upload` endpoint of Open WebUI version 0.3.8. The vulnerability claimed to stem from improper handling of the `file.filename` parameter in the code path `file_path = f"{UPLOAD_DIR}/{file.filename}"`, which could allow an attacker to manipulate filenames to include directory traversal sequences (e.g., `../`) and escape the intended upload directory. The attack was reported to require high privileges (administrative access), network access, and no user interaction. However, GitHub's advisory review process determined that upon further analysis, this does not constitute a valid security vulnerability, leading to withdrawal of the advisory on 2026-09-02. No patches were issued.
Affected products
- open-webui open-webui <= 0.3.8
Timeline
- 2025-03-20: disclosed
- 2025-03-21: advisory
- 2026-09-02: other: Advisory withdrawn - determined not to be a valid vulnerability