Fortify and AntiXSS

Question

My company requires our ASP.NET code to pass a Fortify 360 scan before releasing the code. We use AntiXSS everywhere to sanitize HTML output. We also validate input. Unfortunately, they recently changed the "template" Fortify was using and now it's flagging all our AntiXSS calls as "Poor Validation". These calls are doing things like AntiXSS.HTMLEncode(sEmailAddress).

Anyone know exactly what would satisfy Fortify? A lot of what it's flagging is output where the value comes from a database and never from a user at all, so if HTMLEncode isn't safe enough, we have no idea what is!

Answer 1

I'm a member of Fortify's Security Research Group and I'm sorry for the confusion this issue has been causing you. We haven't done a very good job of presenting this type of issue. I think part of the problem is the category name -- we're not trying to say that there is anything wrong with the validation mechanism, just that we cannot tell if it is the appropriate validation for this situation.

In other words, we don't know what the right validation is for your particular context. For this reason, we do not recognize any HTML encoding functions as validating against XSS out of the box, even the ones in Microsoft's AntiXSS library.

As for what the right solution is, if you are using HtmlEncode to output a username to the body of an HTML page, your original code is fine. If the the encoded username is being used in a URL, it could be vulnerable to XSS. At Fortify, when we find similar issues in our own code, if the validation matches the context, we mark it "Not an Issue".

We are aware of the problems around these issues keep tweaking our rules to make them more precise and understandable. We release new rules every three months and expect to make a couple changes in upcoming releases. For Q4, we plan to split the issues into Inadequate Validation (for blacklisting encoding and other weak validation schemes) and Context Sensitive Validation (the type of issue you're seeing). Please let us know if we can help more.

(A link to an OWASP explanation of why HTML encoding doesn't solve all problems: http://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_(Cross_Site_Scripting)_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet#Why_Can.27t_I_Just_HTML_Entity_Encode_Untrusted_Data.3F)

Answer 2

fd_dev, I would add that you shouldn't focus on squeezing your code to fit through static analysis hoops. If you are qualified and confident that the finding doesn't apply, use the Fortify GUI tools to record a comment and suppress the issue.

If you are not sure, take a little screenshot and email it to Fortify Technical Support. They are well qualified to advise you on how to interpret your Fortify security findings.

blowdart is spot on. See http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/random_number_b.html for the worst case of what can happen if you chase static analysis results without understanding the purpose of the code and the reason/mechanics behind the finding. (In a word, you could make the code worse instead of better)-: