CWE-76: Improper Neutralization of Equivalent Special Elements
Improper Neutralization of Equivalent Special Elements
Weakness ID: 76 (Weakness Base)
Status: Draft
Description
Description Summary
The software properly neutralizes certain special elements, but it improperly neutralizes equivalent special elements.
Extended Description
The software may have a fixed list of special characters it believes is complete. However, there may be alternate encodings, or representations that also have the same meaning. For example, the software may filter out a leading slash (/) to prevent absolute path names, but does not account for a tilde (~) followed by a user name, which on some *nix systems could be expanded to an absolute pathname. Alternately, the software might filter a dangerous "-e" command-line switch when calling an external program, but it might not account for "--exec" or other switches that have the same semantics.
Time of Introduction
Architecture and Design
Implementation
Applicable Platforms
Languages
All
Common Consequences
Scope
Effect
Other
Technical Impact: Other
Likelihood of Exploit
High to Very High
Potential Mitigations
Phase: Requirements
Programming languages and supporting technologies might be chosen
which are not subject to these issues.
Phase: Implementation
Utilize an appropriate mix of white-list and black-list parsing to
filter equivalent special element syntax from all input.
Weakness Ordinalities
Ordinality
Description
Primary
(where
the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
Description
