CWE-428: Unquoted Search Path or Element
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.
- Abstraction
- BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Status
- Draft
Common consequences
- ConfidentialityIntegrityAvailability
Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Potential mitigations
- Implementation
Properly quote the full search path before executing a program on the system.
- ImplementationInput Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an accept known good input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, boat may be syntactically valid...
- ImplementationInput Validation
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.
Related weaknesses
Parent weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it
CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.