GordonDiggs/rayons

Mass assignment is a feature of Rails which allows an application to create a record from the values of a hash.

Example:

User.new(params[:user])

Unfortunately, if there is a user field called admin which controls administrator access, now any user can make themselves an administrator.

attr_accessible and attr_protected can be used to limit mass assignment. However, Brakeman will warn unless attr_accessible is used, or mass assignment is completely disabled.

There are two different mass assignment warnings which can arise. The first is when mass assignment actually occurs, such as the example above. This results in a warning like

Unprotected mass assignment near line 61: User.new(params[:user])

The other warning is raised whenever a model is found which does not use attr_accessible. This produces generic warnings like

Mass assignment is not restricted using attr_accessible

with a list of affected models.

In Rails 3.1 and newer, mass assignment can easily be disabled:

config.active_record.whitelist_attributes = true

Unfortunately, it can also easily be bypassed:

User.new(params[:user], :without_protection => true)

Brakeman will warn on uses of without_protection.

Unvalidated redirects and forwards are #10 on the OWASP Top Ten.

Redirects which rely on user-supplied values can be used to "spoof" websites or hide malicious links in otherwise harmless-looking URLs. They can also allow access to restricted areas of a site if the destination is not validated.

Brakeman will raise warnings whenever redirect_to appears to be used with a user-supplied value that may allow them to change the :host option.

For example,

redirect_to params.merge(:action => :home)

will create a warning like

Possible unprotected redirect near line 46: redirect_to(params)

This is because params could contain :host => 'evilsite.com' which would redirect away from your site and to a malicious site.

If the first argument to redirect_to is a hash, then adding :only_path => true will limit the redirect to the current host. Another option is to specify the host explicitly.

redirect_to params.merge(:only_path => true)

redirect_to params.merge(:host => 'myhost.com')

If the first argument is a string, then it is possible to parse the string and extract the path:

redirect_to URI.parse(some_url).path

If the URL does not contain a protocol (e.g., http://), then you will probably get unexpected results, as redirect_to will prepend the current host name and a protocol.

This cop can check for array literals made up of symbols that are not using the %i() syntax.

Alternatively, it checks for symbol arrays using the %i() syntax on projects which do not want to use that syntax.

Configuration option: MinSize If set, arrays with fewer elements than this value will not trigger the cop. For example, a MinSize of3` will not enforce a style on an array of 2 or fewer elements.

Example: EnforcedStyle: percent (default)

# good
%i[foo bar baz]

# bad
[:foo, :bar, :baz]

Example: EnforcedStyle: brackets

# good
[:foo, :bar, :baz]

# bad
%i[foo bar baz]

This cop checks for rescuing StandardError. There are two supported styles implicit and explicit. This cop will not register an offense if any error other than StandardError is specified.

Example: EnforcedStyle: implicit

# `implicit` will enforce using `rescue` instead of
# `rescue StandardError`.

# bad
begin
  foo
rescue StandardError
  bar
end

# good
begin
  foo
rescue
  bar
end

# good
begin
  foo
rescue OtherError
  bar
end

# good
begin
  foo
rescue StandardError, SecurityError
  bar
end

Example: EnforcedStyle: explicit (default)

# `explicit` will enforce using `rescue StandardError`
# instead of `rescue`.

# bad
begin
  foo
rescue
  bar
end

# good
begin
  foo
rescue StandardError
  bar
end

# good
begin
  foo
rescue OtherError
  bar
end

# good
begin
  foo
rescue StandardError, SecurityError
  bar
end

This cop can check for array literals made up of symbols that are not using the %i() syntax.

Alternatively, it checks for symbol arrays using the %i() syntax on projects which do not want to use that syntax.

Configuration option: MinSize If set, arrays with fewer elements than this value will not trigger the cop. For example, a MinSize of3` will not enforce a style on an array of 2 or fewer elements.

Example: EnforcedStyle: percent (default)

# good
%i[foo bar baz]

# bad
[:foo, :bar, :baz]

Example: EnforcedStyle: brackets

# good
[:foo, :bar, :baz]

# bad
%i[foo bar baz]

This cops checks if empty lines exist around the bodies of begin sections. This cop doesn't check empty lines at begin body beginning/end and around method definition body. Style/EmptyLinesAroundBeginBody or Style/EmptyLinesAroundMethodBody can be used for this purpose.

Example:

# good

begin
  do_something
rescue
  do_something2
else
  do_something3
ensure
  do_something4
end

# good

def foo
  do_something
rescue
  do_something2
end

# bad

begin
  do_something

rescue

  do_something2

else

  do_something3

ensure

  do_something4
end

# bad

def foo
  do_something

rescue

  do_something2
end