Prevent XSS in Spring MVC controller

Question

Hi in my project Veracode reported a XSS issue CWE ID 80. Here in my request handler method:

@RequestMapping(value = "/Update.mvc")
public @ResponseBody String execute(@ModelAttribute UpdateForm updateForm, BindingResult result,
       HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ActionException {
    return executeAjax(updateForm, request, response, result);
}

So executeAjax comes from an abstract class and has different implementations? In these implementations user input from the form is get and is manipulated in order to construct the String which is returned.

So my question is : Is the Veracode assumption is that in the implementation can have XSS? Or something general? - How can prevent this? I always use transforms the input data and it is not returned as the user enters it? - So how to prevent it? - Do I have to escape all the headers/request paramters from the HttpServiceRequest?

Edit: Do I have to use filters like: SecurityWrapperRequest

Answer 1

You can use XSSFilter to escape all request parameters. See here

public class XSSFilter implements Filter {

    @Override
    public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {
    }

    @Override
    public void destroy() {
    }

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain)
        throws IOException, ServletException {
        chain.doFilter(new XSSRequestWrapper((HttpServletRequest) request), response);
    }

}

and wrapper

import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequestWrapper;

public class XSSRequestWrapper extends HttpServletRequestWrapper {

    public XSSRequestWrapper(HttpServletRequest servletRequest) {
        super(servletRequest);
    }

    @Override
    public String[] getParameterValues(String parameter) {
        String[] values = super.getParameterValues(parameter);

        if (values == null) {
            return null;
        }

        int count = values.length;
        String[] encodedValues = new String[count];
        for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
            encodedValues[i] = stripXSS(values[i]);
        }

        return encodedValues;
    }

    @Override
    public String getParameter(String parameter) {
        String value = super.getParameter(parameter);

        return stripXSS(value);
    }

    @Override
    public String getHeader(String name) {
        String value = super.getHeader(name);
        return stripXSS(value);
    }

    private String stripXSS(String value) {
        if (value != null) {
            // NOTE: It's highly recommended to use the ESAPI library and uncomment the following line to
            // avoid encoded attacks.
            // value = ESAPI.encoder().canonicalize(value);

            // Avoid null characters
            value = value.replaceAll("", "");

            // Avoid anything between script tags
            Pattern scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("<script>(.*?)</script>", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Avoid anything in a src='...' type of expression
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("src[\r\n]*=[\r\n]*\\\'(.*?)\\\'", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("src[\r\n]*=[\r\n]*\\\"(.*?)\\\"", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Remove any lonesome </script> tag
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("</script>", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Remove any lonesome <script ...> tag
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("<script(.*?)>", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Avoid eval(...) expressions
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("eval\\((.*?)\\)", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Avoid expression(...) expressions
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("expression\\((.*?)\\)", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Avoid javascript:... expressions
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("javascript:", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Avoid vbscript:... expressions
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("vbscript:", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");

            // Avoid onload= expressions
            scriptPattern = Pattern.compile("onload(.*?)=", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
            value = scriptPattern.matcher(value).replaceAll("");
        }
        return value;
    }
}

Actually you can use the filter as a basement and extend it to add any desired logic to wrapper.