Vulnerabilities/

Remote File Inclusion

Impact: High

Description

The File Inclusion vulnerability allows an attacker to include a file, usually exploiting a “dynamic file inclusion” mechanisms implemented in the target application. The vulnerability occurs due to the use of user-supplied input without proper validation. OWASP

In a Remote File Inclusion, the content of the remote file is fetched and executed. This allows attackers to run arbitrary codes on the server. Furthermore, this causes a Server-side request forgery issue.

Recommendation

The most effective solution to eliminate file inclusion vulnerabilities is to avoid passing user-submitted input to any filesystem/framework API. If this is not possible the application can maintain an allow list of files, that may be included by the page, and then use an identifier (for example the index number) to access to the selected file. Any request containing an invalid identifier has to be rejected, in this way there is no attack surface for malicious users to manipulate the path. OWASP

References

Last updated on October 10, 2021

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