Expression Language Injection

CWE-917

Overtime trend (NVD)

CVSS severity (NVD, All Time)

Per technology (GHSA, All time)

72%-Maven
27%-Composer

Short description

The product constructs all or part of an expression language (EL) statement in a framework such as a Java Server Page (JSP) using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended EL statement before it is executed.

Extended description

Frameworks such as Java Server Page (JSP) allow a developer to insert executable expressions within otherwise-static content. When the developer is not aware of the executable nature of these expressions and/or does not disable them, then if an attacker can inject expressions, this could lead to code execution or other unexpected behaviors.

Best practices to prevent this CWE

Phase: Architecture and Design

Avoid adding user-controlled data into an expression interpreter when possible.

Phase: Implementation

Validate that the user input will not evaluate as an expression
Encode the user input in a way that ensures it is not evaluated as an expression

Phase: System Configuration; Operation

The framework or tooling might allow the developer to disable or deactivate the processing of EL expressions, such as setting the isELIgnored attribute for a JSP page to "true".

Recently published CVEs

CVE-2024-4286
CVE-2023-51593
CVE-2024-0715
CVE-2023-41331
CVE-2023-32200

Recently published GHSA

GHSA-p7w2-784m-qpq9
GHSA-m384-pj54-5vr2
GHSA-j927-w6g7-7c7w
GHSA-xgh5-gwq5-rpx8
GHSA-wxqc-pxw9-g2p8

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