High · published October 14, 2026
Epic Games Unreal Engine versions up to and including 5.8.0 ship with an insecure default configuration for the LaunchURL Blueprint node (UKismetSystemLibrary::LaunchURL). The URL scheme filter (FURLRequestFilter) is empty by default, which permits all URL schemes. On Windows, this results in a call to ShellExecuteW() with the open verb, so a supplied file:/// URI causes the referenced file to be executed. Any Unreal Engine game that loads user-generated content containing Blueprints is vulnerable to command execution via a malicious local file or a remote file on a WebDAV share. This is an instance of CWE-1188 (Initialization of a Resource with an Insecure Default).