This entry has been deprecated because of name confusion and an accidental combination of multiple weaknesses. Most of its content has been transferred to CWE-785.
View on MITREThis entry was deprecated for several reasons. The primary reason is over-loading of the "path manipulation" term and the description. The original description for this entry was the same as that for the "Often Misused: File System" item in the original Seven Pernicious Kingdoms paper. However, Seven Pernicious Kingdoms also has a "Path Manipulation" phrase that is for external control of pathnames (CWE-73), which is a factor in symbolic link following and path traversal, neither of which is explicitly mentioned in 7PK. Fortify uses the phrase "Often Misused: Path Manipulation" for a broader range of problems, generally for issues related to buffer management. Given the multiple conflicting uses of this term, there is a chance that CWE users may have incorrectly mapped to this entry. The second reason for deprecation is an implied combination of multiple weaknesses within buffer-handling functions. The focus of this entry was generally on the path-conversion functions and their association with buffer overflows. However, some of Fortify's Vulncat entries have the term "path manipulation" but describe a non-overflow weakness in which the buffer is not guaranteed to contain the entire pathname, i.e., there is information truncation (see CWE-222 for a similar concept). A new entry for this non-overflow weakness may be created in a future version of CWE.
No consequence information available for this CWE.
No mitigation information available for this CWE.
No detection method information available for this CWE.
No examples or observed CVEs available for this CWE.
No relationship information available for this CWE.
CWE-249: DEPRECATED: Often Misused: Path Manipulation is a Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) entry maintained by MITRE. This entry has been deprecated because of name confusion and an accidental combination of multiple weaknesses. Most of its content has been transferred to CWE-785. This entry was deprecated for several reasons. The primary reason is over-loading of the "path manipulation" term and the description. The original description for this entry was the same as that for the "Often Misused: File System" item in the original Seven Pernicious Kingdoms paper. However, Seven Pernicious Kingdoms also has a "Path Manipulation" phrase that is for external control of pathnames (CWE-73), which is a factor in symbolic link following and path traversal, neither of which is explicitly mentioned in 7PK. Fortify uses the phrase "Often Misused: Path Manipulation" for a broader range of problems, generally for issues related to buffer management. Given the multiple conflicting uses of this term, there is a chance that CWE users may have incorrectly mapped to this entry. The second reason for deprecation is an implied combination of multiple weaknesses within buffer-handling functions. The focus of this entry was generally on the path-conversion functions and their association with buffer overflows. However, some of Fortify's Vulncat entries have the term "path manipulation" but describe a non-overflow weakness in which the buffer is not guaranteed to contain the entire pathname, i.e., there is information truncation (see CWE-222 for a similar concept). A new entry for this non-overflow weakness may be created in a future version of CWE.
A CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) like CWE-249 describes a category of software weakness — the underlying flaw type. A CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) identifies a specific, real-world vulnerability in a particular product. In short, a CWE is the kind of mistake, and a CVE is an instance of that mistake being found in software.