ABSTRACT

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

EXPLANATION

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 at illustrating 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 Java code snippet reads a string from an HttpServletRequest and sets it as the active catalog for a database Connection.


...
conn.setCatalog(request.getParamter("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.

REFERENCES

[1] Standards Mapping - OWASP Top 10 2004 - (OWASP 2004) A1 Unvalidated Input

[2] Standards Mapping - Security Technical Implementation Guide Version 3 - (STIG 3) APP3510 CAT I

[3] Standards Mapping - Common Weakness Enumeration - (CWE) CWE ID 15

[4] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 1.2 - (PCI 1.2) Requirement 6.3.1.1

[5] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 1.1 - (PCI 1.1) Requirement 6.5.1