Tag Archives: Improper Neutralization of Expression/Command Delimiters

CWE-146 – Improper Neutralization of Expression/Command Delimiters

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Description

The software receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could be interpreted as expression or command delimiters when they are sent to a downstream component.

As data is parsed, an injected/absent/malformed delimiter may cause the process to take unexpected actions.

Modes of Introduction:

– Implementation

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-140

 

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Other: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands, Alter Execution Logic

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase:

Description: 

Developers should anticipate that inter-expression and inter-command delimiters 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