VariantIncomplete

CWE-616Incomplete Identification of Uploaded File Variables (PHP)

Category: other

Description

The PHP application uses an old method for processing uploaded files by referencing the four global variables that are set for each file (e.g. $varname, $varname_size, $varname_name, $varname_type). These variables could be overwritten by attackers, causing the application to process unauthorized files. These global variables could be overwritten by POST requests, cookies, or other methods of populating or overwriting these variables. This could be used to read or process arbitrary files by providing values such as "/etc/passwd".

Common consequences· 1

  • Confidentiality / Integrity — Read Files or Directories, Modify Files or Directories

Potential mitigations· 3

  • [Architecture and Design]Use PHP 4 or later.
  • [Architecture and Design]If you must support older PHP versions, write your own version of is_uploaded_file() and run it against $HTTP_POST_FILES['userfile']))
  • [Implementation]For later PHP versions, reference uploaded files using the $HTTP_POST_FILES or $_FILES variables, and use is_uploaded_file() or move_uploaded_file() to ensure that you are dealing with an uploaded file.

References

  1. https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/616.html

(incoming)2

TypeTargetConfidenceTier
VulnerabilityCVE-2025-67084cve-2025-670840%live
VulnerabilityCVE-2026-22789cve-2026-227890%live

Related by meaning· 6

Nearest entities by semantic similarity across the cs-graph corpus.

CWE
Reliance on File Name or Extension of Externally-Supplied File
CWE
Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
CWE
PHP External Variable Modification
CVE
CVE-2025-46001
CVE
CVE-2025-41736
CVE
CVE-2025-3115
Sourced from MITRE CWE 4.20. Curated for EU compliance use cases by Adam Lundqvist, Founder at SQUR.