Setting Manipulation

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.

Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.

Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following C code accepts a number as one of its command line parameters and sets it as the host ID of the current machine.

...
sethostid(argv[1]);
...

Although a process must be privileged to successfully invoke sethostid(), unprivileged users may be able to invoke the program. The code in this example allows user input to directly control the value of a system setting. If an attacker provides a malicious value for host ID, the attacker may misidentify the affected machine on the network or cause other unintended behavior.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.



Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following COBOL code snippet reads values from the terminal and uses them to compute the options used to establish access to a queue object.

...
ACCEPT OPT1.
ACCEPT OPT2
COMPUTE OPTS = OPT1 + OPT2.
CALL 'MQOPEN' USING HCONN, OBJECTDESC, OPTS, HOBJ, COMPOCODE REASON.
... 

In this example, an attacker could supply an option that allows shared rather than exclusive access to the queue.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.

Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following code reads a number from a web form and uses it to set the timeout value in an initialization file.

...
<cfset code = SetProfileString(IniPath, 
              Section, "timeout", Form.newTimeout)>
...

Because the value of Form.newTimeout is used to specify a timeout, an attacker may be able to mount a denial of service (DoS) attack against the application by specifying a sufficiently large number.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.



Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following code snippet sets an environment variable with user-controlled data.

...
catalog := request.Form.Get("catalog")
path := request.Form.Get("path")
os.Setenv(catalog, path)
...

In this example, an attacker could set any arbitrary environment variable and affect how other applications work.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.



Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following Node.js code snippet reads a string from an http.IncomingMessage request variable and uses it to set additional V8 commnd line flags.

var v8 = require('v8');
...
var flags = url.parse(request.url, true)['query']['flags'];
...
v8.setFlagsFromString(flags);
...

In this example, an attacker could cause various different flags to be set on the VM, which may result in unpredictable behavior including crashing the program and potentially data loss.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.



Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following PHP code snippet reads a parameter from an HTTP request and sets it as the active catalog for a database connection.

<?php
    ...
    $table_name=$_GET['catalog'];
    $retrieved_array = pg_copy_to($db_connection, $table_name);
    ...
?>

In this example, an attacker could cause an error by providing a nonexistent catalog name or connect to an unauthorized portion of the database.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.



Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following code snippet sets an environment variable using user-controlled data.

...
catalog = request.GET['catalog']
path = request.GET['path']
os.putenv(catalog, path)
...

In this example, an attacker could set any arbitrary environment variable and affect how other applications work.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.



Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following Scala code snippet reads a string from an Http Request and sets it as the active catalog for a database Connection.

def connect(catalog: String) = Action { request =>
    ...
    conn.setCatalog(catalog)
    ...
}

In this example, an attacker could cause an error by providing a nonexistent catalog name or connect to an unauthorized portion of the database.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.

Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following code configures the SQL log handler and uses a value controllable by the user.

...
sqlite3(SQLITE_CONFIG_LOG, user_controllable);
...

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.

Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.



Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt to illustrate it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.

Example 1: The following VB code snippet reads a string from a Request object and sets it as the active catalog for a database Connection.

...
Dim conn As ADODB.Connection
Set conn = New ADODB.Connection
Dim rsTables As ADODB.Recordset
Dim Catalog As New ADOX.Catalog
Set Catalog.ActiveConnection = conn
Catalog.Create Request.Form("catalog")
...

In this example, an attacker could cause an error by providing a nonexistent catalog name or connect to an unauthorized portion of the database.

In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of your attacker.