A Directory Traversal attack (also known as path traversal) aims to access files and directories that are stored outside the intended folder. By manipulating files with "dot-dot-slash (../)" sequences and its variations, or by using absolute file paths, it may be possible to access arbitrary files and directories stored on file system, including application source code, configuration, and other critical system files.

https://security.snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JAVA-ORGCODEHAUSPLEXUS-31521

A flaw was found in codehaus-plexus. The org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.XmlWriterUtil#writeComment fails to sanitize comments for a --> sequence. This issue means that text contained in the command string could be interpreted as XML and allow for XML injection.