.checkstyle
 maven-eclipse.xml
 workspace
+.vscode
 
 ## Compilation Files ##
 *.class
 
 import java.security.MessageDigest;
 import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
 
+import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.utils.PathValidator;
+
 import javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter;
 
 public class CheckSumHelper {
 
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
 import org.xml.sax.*;
 import org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler;
+import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.utils.PathValidator;
 
 /**
  * @author dt5972
 
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.util.Properties;
 import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.dblib.DBResourceManager;
+import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.utils.PathValidator;
 import org.slf4j.Logger;
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
 
 
 import java.util.TimeZone;
 
 import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.sli.ConfigurationException;
-import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.sli.PathValidator;
+import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.utils.PathValidator;
 import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.sli.SvcLogicException;
 import org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.sli.SvcLogicRecorder;
 
 
         final File fileFromEnvVariable;
         if (!Strings.isNullOrEmpty(propDirectoryFromEnvVariable)) {
             fileFromEnvVariable = Paths.get(propDirectoryFromEnvVariable).resolve(filename).toFile();
-            if(fileFromEnvVariable.exists()) {
+            if(PathValidator.isValidFilePath(fileFromEnvVariable.getAbsolutePath()) && fileFromEnvVariable.exists()) {
                 return Optional.of(fileFromEnvVariable);
             }
         }
 
-package org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.sli;
-
+package org.onap.ccsdk.sli.core.utils;
 import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 
 public class PathValidator {