Improper Neutralization of HTTP Headers for Scripting Syntax
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes web scripting syntax in HTTP headers that can be used by web browser components that can process raw headers, such as Flash.
Description
An attacker may be able to conduct cross-site scripting and other attacks against users who have these components enabled.
If a product does not neutralize user controlled data being placed in the header of an HTTP response coming from the server, the header may contain a script that will get executed in the client's browser context, potentially resulting in a cross site scripting vulnerability or possibly an HTTP response splitting attack. It is important to carefully control data that is being placed both in HTTP response header and in the HTTP response body to ensure that no scripting syntax is present, taking various encodings into account.
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, user-controlled data is added to the HTTP headers and returned to the client. Given that the data is not subject to neutralization, a malicious user may be able to inject dangerous scripting tags that will lead to script execution in the client browser.
response.addHeader(HEADER_NAME, untrustedRawInputData);See Also
Weaknesses in this category are related to improper neutralization.
Weaknesses in this category are related to the A03 category "Injection" in the OWASP Top Ten 2021.
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.
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