In URLs, certain characters must be encoded. The forward slash ( / ) is often encoded as %2F . However, in this payload, the percent sign ( % ) is missing — replaced by a hyphen ( - ). Attackers often alter encoding to bypass weak input filters that look for %2F but not -2F .
: This represents /root/ , the home directory for the system administrator (root user) on Linux-based systems. Why This Vulnerability Exists -include-..-2F..-2F..-2F..-2Froot-2F
). Attackers often use encoding to bypass basic security filters that only look for literal characters. In URLs, certain characters must be encoded