CWE-112: Missing XML Validation
Description
The product accepts XML from an untrusted source but does not validate the XML against the proper schema.
Submission Date :
July 19, 2006, midnight
Modification Date :
2023-06-29 00:00:00+00:00
Organization :
MITRE
Extended Description
Most successful attacks begin with a violation of the programmer's assumptions. By accepting an XML document without validating it against a DTD or XML schema, the programmer leaves a door open for attackers to provide unexpected, unreasonable, or malicious input.
Example - 1
The following code loads and parses an XML file.
// // Read DOM//
...DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();factory.setValidating( false );....c_dom = factory.newDocumentBuilder().parse( xmlFile );...try {} catch(Exception ex) {}The XML file is loaded without validating it against a known XML Schema or DTD.
Example - 2
The following code creates a DocumentBuilder object to be used in building an XML document.
DocumentBuilderFactory builderFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();builderFactory.setNamespaceAware(true);DocumentBuilder builder = builderFactory.newDocumentBuilder();The DocumentBuilder object does not validate an XML document against a schema, making it possible to create an invalid XML document.
Related Weaknesses
This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined to give an overview of the different insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction.
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