# V5624. OWASP. Use of potentially tainted data in configuration may lead to security issues.

The analyzer detected that the data from the external source is used in configuration. This may lead to the security issue.

Vulnerabilities of this type belong to the OWASP Top 10 Application Security Risks 2021: A5:2021 - Security Misconfiguration

Let's take an example:

    public void ExecuteSqlQuery(....)
    {
      ....
      string catalog = Request.QueryString["catalog"];
      using (SqlConnection dbConnection = IO.GetDBConnection())
      {
        dbConnection.ConnectionString = $"Data Source=....; " +
                                        $"Initial Catalog={catalog}; " +
                                        $"User ID=....; " +
                                        $"Password=....;";
        ....
      }
      ....
    }

In this example, a database connection string is created. Data is written into the 'Initial Catalog' parameter without proper validation, so an attacker can pass any directory name. As a result, they can get unauthorized access to private information.

In order to defend against similar attacks, developers need to check input data. Here is an example of how to correctly create a connection string:

    public void ExecuteSqlQuery(...., HashSet<string> validCatalogNames)
    {
      ....
      string catalog = Request.QueryString["catalog"];

      if(!validCatalogNames.Contains(catalog))
        return;

      using(SqlConnection dbConnection = IO.GetDBConnection())
      {
        dbConnection.ConnectionString = $"Data Source=....; " +
                                        $"Initial Catalog={catalog}; " +
                                        $"User ID=....; " +
                                        $"Password=....;";
        ....
      }
      ....
    }

In this code fragment the if-statement checks if 'catalog' is in the 'validCatalogNames' collection. Thus, users will have access only to a certain list of directories. This approach will prevent attackers from obtaining private information.

This diagnostic is classified as:

CWE-15