Back to CWE Lookup

CWE-88: Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection')

BaseDraft
View on MITRE

The product constructs a string for a command to be executed by a separate component in another control sphere, but it does not properly delimit the intended arguments, options, or switches within that command string.

Extended Description

When creating commands using interpolation into a string, developers may assume that only the arguments/options that they specify will be processed. This assumption may be even stronger when the programmer has encoded the command in a way that prevents separate commands from being provided maliciously, e.g. in the case of shell metacharacters. When constructing the command, the developer may use whitespace or other delimiters that are required to separate arguments when the command. However, if an attacker can provide an untrusted input that contains argument-separating delimiters, then the resulting command will have more arguments than intended by the developer. The attacker may then be able to change the behavior of the command. Depending on the functionality supported by the extraneous arguments, this may have security-relevant consequences.

Technical Details

Structure
Simple

Applicable To

Languages
PHPNot Language-Specific
Platforms
CWE-88: Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection') | CWE Lookup | Inventive HQ