CFFILE and UNC Path

Does anyone know a way to use CFFILE action="read" to read a filename on
a Network Path?

Yup, you put the UNC path into the file property of the tag.

<cffile file="\\server\directory\file.extension"...>

The trick with this is that the default user that the ColdFusion service
runs under "localSystem" will not have permissions (usually) to any
other system over the network. You will have to provide this user, or
configure the CF service to use a domain user (the better practice),
that has the required permissions to the desired resource.