CAPEC-586 Metadata
Likelihood of Attack
Medium
Typical Severity
High
Overview
Summary
An adversary attempts to exploit an application by injecting additional, malicious content during its processing of serialized objects. Developers leverage serialization in order to convert data or state into a static, binary format for saving to disk or transferring over a network. These objects are then deserialized when needed to recover the data/state. By injecting a malformed object into a vulnerable application, an adversary can potentially compromise the application by manipulating the deserialization process. This can result in a number of unwanted outcomes, including remote code execution.
Prerequisites
The target application must unserialize data before validation.
Potential Solutions / Mitigations
Implementation: Validate object before deserialization process Design: Limit which types can be deserialized. Implementation: Avoid having unnecessary types or gadgets available that can be leveraged for malicious ends. Use an allowlist of acceptable classes. Implementation: Keep session state on the server, when possible.
Related Weaknesses (CWE)
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-502 | Deserialization of Untrusted Data |
Stay Ahead of Attack Patterns
Understanding CAPEC patterns helps security professionals anticipate and thwart potential attacks. Leverage these insights to enhance threat modeling, strengthen your software development lifecycle, and train your security teams effectively.