CWE-611Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

Description

The product processes an XML document that can contain XML entities with URIs that resolve to documents outside of the intended sphere of control, causing the product to embed incorrect documents into its output.

Common consequences

• Confidentiality→Read Application Data,Read Files or Directories
  If the attacker is able to include a crafted DTD and a default entity resolver is enabled, the attacker may be able to access arbitrary files on the system. By submitting an XML file that defines an external entity with a file:// URI, an at
• Integrity→Bypass Protection Mechanism
  An attacker may supply a crafted DTD using URIs with schemes such as http://, forcing the application to make outgoing HTTP requests to servers that the attacker cannot reach directly, which can be used to bypass firewall restrictions; hide
• Availability→DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU),DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)
  The product could consume excessive CPU cycles or memory using a URI that points to a large file, or a device that always returns data such as /dev/random. Alternately, the URI could reference a file that contains many nested or recursive e

Potential mitigations

• Implementation,System Configuration
  Many XML parsers and validators can be configured to disable external entity expansion.

Related CWEs

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