Uploaded image for project: 'Struts 2'
  1. Struts 2
  2. WW-2107

Arbitrary user-submitted OGNL possible when using JSP EL or FreeMarker

VotersWatch issueWatchersLinkCloneUpdate Comment AuthorReplace String in CommentUpdate Comment VisibilityDelete Comments
    XMLWordPrintableJSON

Details

    • Bug
    • Status: Closed
    • Blocker
    • Resolution: Fixed
    • 2.0.9
    • 2.0.10
    • Plugin - Tags
    • None
    • Important

    Description

      It is possible for a user to submit malicious OGNL that could be executed in a page that uses JSP EL expressions in Struts tag attributes. FreeMarker pages that use FreeMarker expressions in Struts tag attributes are also affected. Velocity pages are not affected.

      For example, say you had this JSP page fragement:

      <s:text name="foo" value="${bar}" />

      And a user submitted, via a validation error or request url query parameter, the value:

      bar=%

      {1+1}

      What happens is the JSP processor gets the page first and processes the JSP EL expression resulting in:

      <s:text name="foo" value="%{1+1}

      " />

      Then, the Struts 2 tag receives the 'value' attribute value and processes the OGNL expression, resulting in this:

      <input type="text" name="foo" value="2" />

      The workaround is to ensure you don't use JSP EL or FreeMarker expressions in Struts tag attributes because you could be unwittingly allowing arbitrary code execution.

      The proposed solution is to turn off, via the TLD, JSP EL expressions in all Struts tag attributes. This will mostly likely break many Struts 2 applications, but the severity of the issue needs to be taken into account. This solution doesn't unfortunately resolve the FreeMarker issue.

      Attachments

        Issue Links

        Activity

          This comment will be Viewable by All Users Viewable by All Users
          Cancel

          People

            mrdon Donald J. Brown
            mrdon Donald J. Brown
            Votes:
            1 Vote for this issue
            Watchers:
            5 Start watching this issue

            Dates

              Created:
              Updated:
              Resolved:

              Slack

                Issue deployment