Description
The software receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could be interpreted as whitespace when they are sent to a downstream component.
This can include space, tab, etc.
Modes of Introduction:
– Implementation
Related Weaknesses
Consequences
Integrity: Unexpected State
Potential Mitigations
Phase:
Description:
Developers should anticipate that whitespace will be injected/removed/manipulated in the input vectors of their software system. Use an appropriate combination of denylists and allowlists to ensure only valid, expected and appropriate input is processed by the system.
Phase: Implementation
Description:
Phase: Implementation
Description:
While 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 white space). If some special characters are still needed, such as white space, wrap each argument in quotes after the escaping/filtering step. Be careful of argument injection (CWE-88).
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-2002-0637
- MIE. virus protection bypass with RFC violations involving extra whitespace, or missing whitespace.
- CVE-2004-0942
- CPU consumption with MIME headers containing lines with many space characters, probably due to algorithmic complexity (RESOURCE.AMP.ALG).
- CVE-2003-1015
- MIE. whitespace interpreted differently by mail clients.