-template-..-2f..-2f..-2f..-2froot-2f.aws-2fcredentials |top| Instant

: This "climbs" up the folder hierarchy from the web application's directory (e.g., /var/www/html/ ) all the way to the system root ( / ).

: The AWS root user has total control over every resource in the account. -template-..-2F..-2F..-2F..-2Froot-2F.aws-2Fcredentials

The attack succeeds when a web application takes user input and passes it directly to a file-system API (like file_get_contents() in PHP or fs.readFile() in Node.js) without proper validation. javascript : This "climbs" up the folder hierarchy from

Here is how an attacker would use this string in a real HTTP request. -template-..-2F..-2F..-2F..-2Froot-2F.aws-2Fcredentials

If an application is poorly coded and doesn't "sanitize" this input, it might actually open and display the contents of that file. This is catastrophic because: