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CWE-611 — Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

provenance: imported · CWE: CWE-611

CWE-611: Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

MITRE CWE weakness

Kind Weakness
Abstraction Base
Status Draft
Likelihood of exploit

Description

The product processes an XML document that can contain XML entities with URIs that resolve to documents outside of the intended sphere of control, causing the product to embed incorrect documents into its output.

Common consequences

  • Confidentiality: Read Application Data, Read Files or Directories
  • Integrity: Bypass Protection Mechanism
  • Availability: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)

Mitigations

Implementation — Many XML parsers and validators can be configured to disable external entity expansion.

References

  • CWE page: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/611.html
  • CWE list: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/index.html