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CWE-110: Struts: Validator Without Form Field

Individual Definition in a New Window
Struts: Validator Without Form Field
Status: Draft
Weakness ID: 110 (Weakness Variant)
Description
Summary

Validation fields that do not appear in forms they are associated with indicate that the validation logic is out of date.

Weakness Ordinalities
Primary (where the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
Causal Nature
Explicit (an explicit weakness resulting from behavior of the developer)
Potential Mitigations

To find the issue in the implementation, manual checks or automated static analysis could be applied to the xml configuration files.

Demonstrative Examples
Example 1:

An action form with two fields.

public class DateRangeForm extends ValidatorForm {
String startDate, endDate;
 
public void setStartDate(String startDate) {
this.startDate = startDate;
}
 
public void setEndDate(String endDate) {
this.endDate = endDate;
}
}

This example shows an action form that has two fields, startDate and endDate.

Example 2:

A validation form with a third field.

<form name="DateRangeForm">
<field property="startDate" depends="date">
<arg0 key="start.date"/>
</field>
<field property="endDate" depends="date">
<arg0 key="end.date"/>
</field>
<field property="scale" depends="integer">
<arg0 key="range.scale"/>
</field>
</form>

This example lists a validation form for the action form. The validation form lists a third field: scale. The presence of the third field suggests that DateRangeForm was modified without taking validation into account.

Other Notes

It is easy for developers to forget to update validation logic when they make changes to an ActionForm class. One indication that validation logic is not being properly maintained is inconsistencies between the action form and the validation form.

It is critically important that validation logic be maintained and kept in sync with the rest of the application. Unchecked input is the root cause of some of today's worst and most common software security problems. Cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and process control vulnerabilities all stem from incomplete or absent input validation. Although J2EE applications are not generally susceptible to memory corruption attacks, if a J2EE application interfaces with native code that does not perform array bounds checking, an attacker may be able to use an input validation mistake in the J2EE application to launch a buffer overflow attack.

Relationships
NatureTypeIDNameView(s) this relationship pertains toView(s)
ChildOfCategoryCategory101Struts Validation Problems
Development Concepts (primary)699
ChildOfWeakness ClassWeakness ClassWeakness Class398Indicator of Poor Code Quality
Research Concepts (primary)1000
ChildOfWeakness ClassWeakness ClassWeakness Class20Insufficient Input Validation
Seven Pernicious Kingdoms (primary)700
Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy NameMapped Node Name
7 Pernicious KingdomsStruts: Validator Without Form Field
Applicable Platforms
Languages
Java
Time of Introduction
* Implementation
* Operation
Content History
Submissions
7 Pernicious Kingdoms. (Externally Mined)
Modifications
Eric Dalci. Cigital. 2008-07-01. (External)
updated Potential_Mitigations, Time_of_Introduction
CWE Content Team. MITRE. 2008-09-08. (Internal)
updated Relationships, Other_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings, Weakness_Ordinalities
Page Last Updated: October 16, 2008