CWE-915

Improperly Controlled Modification of Dynamically-Determined Object Attributes

High

Description

The product receives input from an upstream component that specifies multiple attributes, properties, or fields that are to be initialized or updated in an object, but it does not properly control which attributes can be modified.

Potential Impact

How to Fix

Implementation

If available, use features of the language or framework that allow specification of allowlists of attributes or fields that are allowed to be modified. If possible, prefer allowlists over denylists. For applications written with Ruby on Rails, use the attr_accessible (allowlist) or attr_protected (denylist) macros in each class that may be used in mass assignment.

Architecture and Design

If available, use the signing/sealing features of the programming language to assure that deserialized data has not been tainted. For example, a hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) could be used to ensure that data has not been modified.

Implementation

For any externally-influenced input, check the input against an allowlist of internal object attributes or fields that are allowed to be modified.

Implementation

Refactor the code so that object attributes or fields do not need to be dynamically identified, and only expose getter/setter functionality for the intended attributes.

Detection Methods

Related Weaknesses

References

View on MITRE CWE Database →

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