Security Resilience

CWE · MITRE source

CWE-41Improper Resolution of Path Equivalence

Abstraction: Base · CVEs in our corpus: 38

The product is vulnerable to file system contents disclosure through path equivalence. Path equivalence involves the use of special characters in file and directory names. The associated manipulations are intended to generate multiple names for the same object.

Path equivalence is usually employed in order to circumvent access controls expressed using an incomplete set of file name or file path representations. This is different from path traversal, wherein the manipulations are performed to generate a name for a different object.

Last updated: 14 October 2026 20:41 UTC

Control responseHuman-reviewed

Answering this weakness across the control lifecycle, from our framework cross-walks.

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53 / CSF Protect)
  • PR.IR-01
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • PR.PS-06
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
Detect
Catch it (CSF Detect / Respond)

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Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

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Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

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NIST 800-53 r5 controls PROPOSED for this weakness (0)AI-assisted

These are model PROPOSALS, not graded mappings. They come from controls_to_cwe_proposals, which carries no grade field at all; across the CWE pages 1,540 of 1,722 such associations (89%) have never been graded by anything. The heading said “address” until 2026-09-29, which asserted a relationship the data does not carry. Graded cross-walks are on the framework map, not here.

Control Title Family Why it addresses this CWE
No NIST controls proposed yet.

Top CVEs of this weakness type, ranked by Risk Priority

CVE Risk CVSS EPSS Published
CVE-2026-859787.69.80.01442026-09-09
CVE-2026-1022176.88.80.01112026-10-13
CVE-2026-1084636.78.80.00882026-10-13
CVE-2026-881366.78.80.00952026-10-13
CVE-2025-24470 6.58.60.01332025-02-11
CVE-2023-36396 6.27.80.01672023-11-14
CVE-2026-236746.17.50.01242026-03-10
CVE-2024-30073 6.07.80.00902024-09-10
CVE-2024-8765 5.97.30.00842025-03-20
CVE-2026-58165.88.00.00592026-04-22
CVE-2026-701845.87.80.00382026-10-13
CVE-2025-43298 5.77.80.00252025-09-15
CVE-2024-30036 5.56.50.02292024-05-14
CVE-2026-1022315.47.70.00382026-10-13
CVE-2026-72835 5.36.80.00502026-08-14
CVE-2023-46169 5.16.50.00512024-03-07
CVE-2026-494015.17.30.00202026-06-23
CVE-2022-0855 4.86.10.00992022-03-04
CVE-2024-45405 4.66.00.00262024-09-06
CVE-2024-6839 4.65.30.00742025-03-20
CVE-2026-345104.55.30.00462026-04-01
CVE-2026-660644.55.30.00442026-07-28
CVE-2026-937094.45.30.00332026-09-22
CVE-2025-21269 4.34.30.04592025-01-14
CVE-2025-21189 4.24.30.02972025-01-14