The Vert.x Web static handler component cache can be manipulated to deny the access to static files served by the handler using specifically crafted request URI. The issue comes from an improper implementation of the C. rule of section 5.2.4 of RFC3986 and is fixed in Vert.x Core component (used by Vert.x Web): https://github.com/eclipse-vertx/vert.x/pull/5895 Steps to reproduce Given a file served by the static handler, craft an URI that introduces a string like bar%2F..%2F after the last / char to deny the access to the URI with an HTTP 404 response. For example https://example.com/foo/index.html can be denied with https://example.com/foo/bar%2F..%2Findex.html Mitgation Disabling Static Handler cache fixes the issue. StaticHandler staticHandler = StaticHandler.create().setCachingEnabled(false);