A path traversal vulnerability exists in rsync. It stems from behavior enabled by the --inc-recursive option, a default-enabled option for many client options and can be enabled by the server even if not explicitly enabled by the client. When using the --inc-recursive option, a lack of proper symlink verification coupled with deduplication checks occurring on a per-file-list basis could allow a server to write files outside of the client's intended destination directory.

A malicious server could write malicious files to arbitrary locations named after valid directories/paths on the client.