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Home/CWEs/CWE-451
Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-451: User Interface (UI) Misrepresentation of Critical Information

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The user interface (UI) does not properly represent critical information to the user, allowing the information - or its source - to be obscured or spoofed. This is often a component in phishing attacks.

Abstraction
Class
Related CVEs
0

▪References & documentation

https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/451.htmlNVD CWE listing

▪ How attackers exploit CWE-451

MITRE ATT&CK techniques associated with this weakness class (mapped via MITRE CAPEC). A vulnerability of this type could let an adversary carry out:

T1534Internal Spearphishinglateral-movementT1566Phishinginitial-accessT1598Phishing for Informationreconnaissance

Step-by-step: how CWE-451 gets exploited

A stage-by-stage walkthrough of the attack, mapped to the real MITRE ATT&CK tactics for this weakness — what the attacker is trying to do, what's at risk (what can be stolen or damaged), and how you defend. Understanding the playbook is how you shut it down.

  1. 1
    Reconnaissancereconnaissance

    Study the target to find the weakness before touching it.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Exposed version info, error messages, and endpoints that reveal the vulnerable component.

    How you defend

    Minimise information disclosure; hide version banners and verbose errors.

  2. 2
    Initial accessinitial-access

    Use the weakness as the way in — the first foothold on the system.

    At risk / what's stolen

    The vulnerable entry point (an input, endpoint, or dependency) that accepts attacker-controlled data.

    How you defend

    Validate and sanitise all input at the boundary; patch to a fixed version.

  3. 3
    Lateral movementlateral-movement

    Pivot from the compromised system to others on the network.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Adjacent servers, databases, and internal services reachable from the foothold.

    How you defend

    Segmentation, per-service auth, and blocking reused credentials across systems.

This is a defensive, conceptual walkthrough for education — stages reflect MITRE ATT&CK tactics associated with this weakness class, not a working exploit. Not every attack uses every stage.

▪ Related CVEs

No CVEs in the Gold index currently reference CWE-451. New matches appear here as the crawler indexes them.