CWE•Variant•Incomplete•1 recent CVE
CWE-160Improper Neutralization of Leading Special Elements
Description
The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes leading special elements that could be interpreted in unexpected ways when they are sent to a downstream component.
As data is parsed, improperly handled leading special elements may cause the process to take unexpected actions that result in an attack.
Common consequences
- Integrity→Unexpected State
Potential mitigations
- Developers should anticipate that leading special elements will be injected/removed/manipulated in the input vectors of their product. Use an appropriate combination of denylists and allowlists to ensure only valid, expected and appropriate input is processed by the system.
- Implementation[object Object]
- ImplementationWhile it is risky to use dynamically-generated query strings, code, or commands that mix control and data together, sometimes it may be unavoidable. Properly quote arguments and escape any special characters within those arguments. The most conservative approach is to escape or filter all characters that do not pass an extremely strict allowlist (such as everything that is not alphanumeric or whit
- ImplementationInputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174). Such errors could be used to bypass allowlist validation schemes by introducing dangerous inputs after they have been checked.