CWE-72: Improper Handling of Apple HFS+ Alternate Data Stream Path
Official CWE-72 CWE context with Glexia analysis, remediation guidance, related CVEs, and ATT&CK context.
Glexia's Take
CWE-72: Improper Handling of Apple HFS+ Alternate Data Stream Path
Improper Handling of Apple HFS+ Alternate Data Stream Path represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Confidentiality,Integrity: Read Files or Directories,Modify Files or Directories
Developer Pattern
CWE-72 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.
Confidence
high confidence from CWE-72, 4.20.
Official CWE Definition
CWE-72: Improper Handling of Apple HFS+ Alternate Data Stream Path
The product does not properly handle special paths that may identify the data or resource fork of a file on the HFS+ file system.
If the product chooses actions to take based on the file name, then if an attacker provides the data or resource fork, the product may take unexpected actions. Further, if the product intends to restrict access to a file, then an attacker might still be able to bypass intended access restrictions by requesting the data or resource fork for that file.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- Consider a web server that uses the Apple HFS+ file system. It interprets FILE.cgi as processing instructions. An adversary could request "FILE.cgi/..namedfork/data" to prevent FILE.cgi from being executed, instead disclosing the source code for FILE.cgi. This might occur because the web server invokes the default handler which may return the contents of the file.
Remediation
- Use safe APIs
- Centralize the control
- Add regression tests
- Review logs and telemetry for attempted abuse
Detection
- Code review
- SAST
- DAST
- Focused regression tests
Mappings
Related CVEs, CWEs, and ATT&CK context
ATT&CK Relevance
ATT&CK relevance is shown only when reviewed or responsibly inferred.