SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks

Injection is #1 on the 2013 OWASP Top Ten web security risks. SQL injection is when a user is able to manipulate a value which is used unsafely inside a SQL query. This can lead to data leaks, data loss, elevation of privilege, and other unpleasant outcomes.

Brakeman focuses on ActiveRecord methods dealing with building SQL statements.

A basic (Rails 2.x) example looks like this:

User.first(:conditions => "username = '#{params[:username]}'")

Brakeman would produce a warning like this:

Possible SQL injection near line 30: User.first(:conditions => ("username = '#{params[:username]}'"))

The safe way to do this query is to use a parameterized query:

User.first(:conditions => ["username = ?", params[:username]])

Brakeman also understands the new Rails 3.x way of doing things (and local variables and concatenation):

username = params[:user][:name].downcase
password = params[:user][:password]

User.first.where("username = '" + username + "' AND password = '" + password + "'")

This results in this kind of warning:

Possible SQL injection near line 37:
User.first.where((((("username = '" + params[:user][:name].downcase) + "' AND password = '") + params[:user][:password]) + "'"))

See the Ruby Security Guide for more information and Rails-SQLi.org for many examples of SQL injection in Rails.

This cop identifies possible cases where Active Record save! or related should be used instead of save because the model might have failed to save and an exception is better than unhandled failure.

This will allow: - update or save calls, assigned to a variable, or used as a condition in an if/unless/case statement. - create calls, assigned to a variable that then has a call to persisted?. - calls if the result is explicitly returned from methods and blocks, or provided as arguments. - calls whose signature doesn't look like an ActiveRecord persistence method.

By default it will also allow implicit returns from methods and blocks. that behavior can be turned off with AllowImplicitReturn: false.

You can permit receivers that are giving false positives with AllowedReceivers: []

Example:

# bad
user.save
user.update(name: 'Joe')
user.find_or_create_by(name: 'Joe')
user.destroy

# good
unless user.save
  # ...
end
user.save!
user.update!(name: 'Joe')
user.find_or_create_by!(name: 'Joe')
user.destroy!

user = User.find_or_create_by(name: 'Joe')
unless user.persisted?
  # ...
end

def save_user
  return user.save
end

Example: AllowImplicitReturn: true (default)

# good
users.each { |u| u.save }

def save_user
  user.save
end

Example: AllowImplicitReturn: false

# bad
users.each { |u| u.save }
def save_user
  user.save
end

# good
users.each { |u| u.save! }

def save_user
  user.save!
end

def save_user
  return user.save
end

Example: AllowedReceivers: ['merchant.customers', 'Service::Mailer']

# bad
merchant.create
customers.builder.save
Mailer.create

module Service::Mailer
  self.create
end

# good
merchant.customers.create
MerchantService.merchant.customers.destroy
Service::Mailer.update(message: 'Message')
::Service::Mailer.update
Services::Service::Mailer.update(message: 'Message')
Service::Mailer::update

Duplicated Code

Duplicated code can lead to software that is hard to understand and difficult to change. The Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle states:

Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.

When you violate DRY, bugs and maintenance problems are sure to follow. Duplicated code has a tendency to both continue to replicate and also to diverge (leaving bugs as two similar implementations differ in subtle ways).

Tuning

This issue has a mass of 57.

We set useful threshold defaults for the languages we support but you may want to adjust these settings based on your project guidelines.

The threshold configuration represents the minimum mass a code block must have to be analyzed for duplication. The lower the threshold, the more fine-grained the comparison.

If the engine is too easily reporting duplication, try raising the threshold. If you suspect that the engine isn't catching enough duplication, try lowering the threshold. The best setting tends to differ from language to language.

See codeclimate-duplication's documentation for more information about tuning the mass threshold in your .codeclimate.yml.

Refactorings

• Extract Method
• Extract Class
• Form Template Method
• Introduce Null Object
• Pull Up Method
• Pull Up Field
• Substitute Algorithm

Further Reading

• Don't Repeat Yourself on the C2 Wiki
• Duplicated Code on SourceMaking
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler. Duplicated Code, p76

Duplicated Code

Duplicated code can lead to software that is hard to understand and difficult to change. The Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle states:

Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.

When you violate DRY, bugs and maintenance problems are sure to follow. Duplicated code has a tendency to both continue to replicate and also to diverge (leaving bugs as two similar implementations differ in subtle ways).

Tuning

This issue has a mass of 44.

We set useful threshold defaults for the languages we support but you may want to adjust these settings based on your project guidelines.

The threshold configuration represents the minimum mass a code block must have to be analyzed for duplication. The lower the threshold, the more fine-grained the comparison.

If the engine is too easily reporting duplication, try raising the threshold. If you suspect that the engine isn't catching enough duplication, try lowering the threshold. The best setting tends to differ from language to language.

See codeclimate-duplication's documentation for more information about tuning the mass threshold in your .codeclimate.yml.

Refactorings

• Extract Method
• Extract Class
• Form Template Method
• Introduce Null Object
• Pull Up Method
• Pull Up Field
• Substitute Algorithm

Further Reading

• Don't Repeat Yourself on the C2 Wiki
• Duplicated Code on SourceMaking
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler. Duplicated Code, p76