CWE-428Unquoted Search Path or Element

Description

The product uses a search path that contains an unquoted element, in which the element contains whitespace or other separators. This can cause the product to access resources in a parent path.

If a malicious individual has access to the file system, it is possible to elevate privileges by inserting such a file as "C:\Program.exe" to be run by a privileged program making use of WinExec.

Common consequences

• Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability→Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

Potential mitigations

• Implementation
  Properly quote the full search path before executing a program on the system.
• Implementation
  [object Object]
• Implementation
  Inputs 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.

Related CWEs

Recent CVEs classified under this CWE