diff --git a/tests/broken_sstable_test.cc b/tests/broken_sstable_test.cc
index 95732a8dbe..83158082cb 100644
--- a/tests/broken_sstable_test.cc
+++ b/tests/broken_sstable_test.cc
@@ -26,43 +26,49 @@
 
 using namespace sstables;
 
-static future<> broken_sst(sstring dir, unsigned long generation) {
+static future<> broken_sst(sstring dir, unsigned long generation, sstring msg) {
     // Using an empty schema for this function, which is only about loading
     // a malformed component and checking that it fails.
     auto s = make_lw_shared(schema({}, "ks", "cf", {}, {}, {}, {}, utf8_type));
     auto sst = std::make_unique<sstable>(s, dir, generation, la, big);
     auto fut = sst->load();
-    return std::move(fut).then_wrapped([sst = std::move(sst)] (future<> f) mutable {
+    return std::move(fut).then_wrapped([sst = std::move(sst), msg = std::move(msg)] (future<> f) mutable {
         try {
             f.get();
             BOOST_FAIL("expecting exception");
         } catch (malformed_sstable_exception& e) {
-            // ok
+            BOOST_REQUIRE_EQUAL(sstring(e.what()), msg);
         }
         return make_ready_future<>();
     });
 }
 
 SEASTAR_TEST_CASE(empty_toc) {
-    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 1);
+    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 1,
+                      "Empty TOC in sstable tests/sstables/badtoc/la-1-big-TOC.txt");
 }
 
 SEASTAR_TEST_CASE(alien_toc) {
-    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 2);
+    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 2,
+                      "tests/sstables/badtoc/la-2-big-Statistics.db: file not found");
 }
 
 SEASTAR_TEST_CASE(truncated_toc) {
-    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 3);
+    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 3,
+                      "tests/sstables/badtoc/la-3-big-Statistics.db: file not found");
 }
 
 SEASTAR_TEST_CASE(wrong_format_toc) {
-    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 4);
+    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badtoc", 4,
+                      "tests/sstables/badtoc/la-4-big-TOC.txt: file not found");
 }
 
 SEASTAR_TEST_CASE(compression_truncated) {
-    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badcompression", 1);
+    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badcompression", 1,
+                      "tests/sstables/badcompression/la-1-big-Statistics.db: file not found");
 }
 
 SEASTAR_TEST_CASE(compression_bytes_flipped) {
-    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badcompression", 2);
+    return broken_sst("tests/sstables/badcompression", 2,
+                      "tests/sstables/badcompression/la-2-big-Statistics.db: file not found");
 }