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Home/CWEs/CWE-73
Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-73: External Control of File Name or Path

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The product allows user input to control or influence paths or file names that are used in filesystem operations.

Abstraction
Base
Related CVEs
0

▪References & documentation

MITRE CWE definitionNVD CWE listing

▪ How attackers exploit CWE-73

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

T1027Obfuscated Files or InformationstealthT1562Impair DefensesstealthT1574Hijack Execution Flowstealth · execution

Step-by-step: how CWE-73 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
    Executionexecution

    Run attacker-chosen code or commands on the system.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Application logic and the host runtime — an attacker can execute arbitrary code or commands.

    How you defend

▪ Related CVEs

No CVEs in the Gold index currently reference CWE-73. New matches appear here as the crawler indexes them.

Least-privilege runtime, sandboxing, and safe deserialization/parsing.

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.