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CWE-644: Improper Neutralization of HTTP Headers for… | Glexia

CWE-644 (Improper Neutralization of HTTP Headers for Scripting Syntax) weakness overview with consequences, detection methods, mitigations, related CVEs and MITRE…

Release 4.20weaknessIncomplete
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Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

CWE-644: Improper Neutralization of HTTP Headers for Scripting Syntax

Improper Neutralization of HTTP Headers for Scripting Syntax represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.

Executive Impact

  • Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands: Run arbitrary code.
  • Confidentiality: Read Application Data: Attackers may be able to obtain sensitive information.

Developer Pattern

CWE-644 is the kind of defect developers can usually prevent with explicit validation, safer framework defaults, and tests that exercise hostile input or unsafe state transitions.

Automation confidence

high confidence from CWE-644, 4.20.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official CWE Definition

CWE-644: Improper Neutralization of HTTP Headers for Scripting Syntax

The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes web scripting syntax in HTTP headers that can be used by web browser components that can process raw headers, such as Flash.

Type
weakness
Abstraction
Variant
Status
Incomplete
Source
MITRE CWE definition

Developer And Remediation Guidance

How teams prevent and detect this weakness

Causes

  • In the following Java example, user-controlled data is added to the HTTP headers and returned to the client. Given that the data is not subject to neutralization, a malicious user may be able to inject dangerous scripting tags that will lead to script execution in the client browser.

Remediation

  • Architecture and Design: Perform output validation in order to filter/escape/encode unsafe data that is being passed from the server in an HTTP response header.
  • Architecture and Design: Disable script execution functionality in the clients' browser.

Detection

  • Code review
  • SAST
  • DAST
  • Focused regression tests

Mappings

Related CVEs, CWEs, and ATT&CK context

Related CWEs

Related CVEs

Related CVE mappings appear after CVE records are cross-indexed.

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ATT&CK Relevance

ATT&CK relevance is shown only when reviewed or responsibly inferred.