CWE-611

Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference
AI Translation Available

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.

Status
draft
Abstraction
base
Not Language-Specific XML Not Technology-Specific Web Based

Common Consequences

confidentiality integrity availability
Impacts
read application data read files or directories bypass protection mechanism dos: resource consumption (cpu) dos: resource consumption (memory)

Detection Methods

automated static analysis

Potential Mitigations

Phases:
implementation system configuration
Descriptions:
• Many XML parsers and validators can be configured to disable external entity expansion.