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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.

Modes of Introduction:

– Implementation

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-668
CWE-668

 

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Properly quote the full search path before executing a program on the system.

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

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.

CVE References

  • CVE-2005-1185
    • Small handful of others. Program doesn’t quote the “C:Program Files” path when calling a program to be executed – or any other path with a directory or file whose name contains a space – so attacker can put a malicious program.exe into C:.
  • CVE-2005-2938
    • CreateProcess() and CreateProcessAsUser() can be misused by applications to allow “program.exe” style attacks in C:
  • CVE-2000-1128
    • Applies to “Common Files” folder, with a malicious common.exe, instead of “Program Files”/program.exe.