Struts: Plug-in Framework not in Use
When an application does not use an input validation framework such as the Struts Validator, there is a greater risk of introducing weaknesses related to insufficient input validation.
Description
Unchecked input is the leading cause of vulnerabilities in J2EE applications. Unchecked input leads to cross-site scripting, process control, and SQL injection vulnerabilities, among others.
Although J2EE applications are not generally susceptible to memory corruption attacks, if a J2EE application interfaces with native code that does not perform array bounds checking, an attacker may be able to use an input validation mistake in the J2EE application to launch a buffer overflow attack.
Demonstrations
The following examples help to illustrate the nature of this weakness and describe methods or techniques which can be used to mitigate the risk.
Note that the examples here are by no means exhaustive and any given weakness may have many subtle varieties, each of which may require different detection methods or runtime controls.
Example One
In the following Java example the class RegistrationForm is a Struts framework ActionForm Bean that will maintain user input data from a registration webpage for an online business site. The user will enter registration data and, through the Struts framework, the RegistrationForm bean will maintain the user data.
public class RegistrationForm extends org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm {
// private variables for registration form
private String name;
private String email;
...
public RegistrationForm() {
super();
}
// getter and setter methods for private variables
...
}However, the RegistrationForm class extends the Struts ActionForm class which does use the Struts validator plug-in to provide validator capabilities. In the following example, the RegistrationForm Java class extends the ValidatorForm and Struts configuration XML file, struts-config.xml, instructs the application to use the Struts validator plug-in.
public class RegistrationForm extends org.apache.struts.validator.ValidatorForm {
// private variables for registration form
private String name;
private String email;
...
public RegistrationForm() {
super();
}
public ActionErrors validate(ActionMapping mapping, HttpServletRequest request) {...}
// getter and setter methods for private variables
...
}The plug-in tag of the Struts configuration XML file includes the name of the validator plug-in to be used and includes a set-property tag to instruct the application to use the file, validator-rules.xml, for default validation rules and the file, validation.XML, for custom validation.
<struts-config>
<form-beans>
<form-bean name="RegistrationForm" type="RegistrationForm"/>
</form-beans>
...
<!-- ========================= Validator plugin ================================= -->
<plug-in className="org.apache.struts.validator.ValidatorPlugIn">
<set-property
property="pathnames"
value="/WEB-INF/validator-rules.xml,/WEB-INF/validation.xml"/>
</plug-in>
</struts-config>See Also
Weaknesses in this category are related to improper input validation.
This category identifies Software Fault Patterns (SFPs) within the Tainted Input to Command cluster (SFP24).
This view (slice) covers all the elements in CWE.
This view (slice) lists weaknesses that can be introduced during implementation.
This view (slice) covers issues that are found in Java programs that are not common to all languages.
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