This vulnerability occurs when software uses fixed, hard-coded values—like IP addresses, domain names, or URLs—to identify network resources during its startup or configuration phase.
Hard-coding network details such as server addresses, API endpoints, or database locations creates a fragile system. The software will fail or behave unexpectedly if deployed in any environment where those specific resources don't exist or aren't accessible, such as a different data center, a testing setup, or a client's own infrastructure. This directly hurts reliability and portability. While this is primarily a maintainability and deployment issue, it can open security risks. If an attacker can trigger or influence the code paths that use these hard-coded values, they might cause denial-of-service, redirect traffic for phishing, or exploit the resulting error conditions to reveal sensitive system information. The core problem is that the software lacks the flexibility to adapt to its runtime environment.
Impact: Reduce Reliability