COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONIncomplete

CWE-535

Exposure of Information Through Shell Error Message

A command shell error message indicates that there exists an unhandled exception in the web application code. In many cases, an attacker can leverage the conditions that cause these errors in order to gain unauthorized access to the system.

Abstraction

Variant

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

A command shell error message indicates that there exists an unhandled exception in the web application code. In many cases, an attacker can leverage the conditions that cause these errors in order to gain unauthorized access to the system.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Read Application Data

Affected security scopes: Confidentiality

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

  • Follow secure coding guidelines for input handling and boundary checking.
  • Enforce strict security reviews and automated static analysis (SAST) checks.

Verification

How is it detected?

Automated Static Analysis

High
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)