 Description An attacker injects malicious content into an application's DTD in an attempt to produce a negative technical impact. DTDs are used to describe how XML documents are processed. Certain malformed DTDs (for example, those with excessive entity expansion as described in CAPEC 197) can cause the XML parsers that process the DTDs to consume excessive resources resulting in resource depletion. Typical Severity Relationships  This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern. These relationships are defined as ChildOf and ParentOf, and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as CanFollow, PeerOf, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar attack patterns that the user may want to explore.| Nature | Type | ID | Name |
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| ChildOf |  Standard Attack Pattern - A standard level attack pattern in CAPEC is focused on a specific methodology or technique used in an attack. It is often seen as a singular piece of a fully executed attack. A standard attack pattern is meant to provide sufficient details to understand the specific technique and how it attempts to accomplish a desired goal. A standard level attack pattern is a specific type of a more abstract meta level attack pattern. | 250 | XML Injection | | CanFollow |  Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal. | 279 | SOAP Manipulation | | CanPrecede | Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal. | 197 | Exponential Data Expansion | | CanPrecede | Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal. | 491 | Quadratic Data Expansion |
Execution Flow Explore Survey the target: Using a browser or an automated tool, an attacker records all instances of web services to process XML requests. | Techniques |
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| Use an automated tool to record all instances of URLs to process XML requests. | | Use a browser to manually explore the website and analyze how the application processes XML requests. |
Determine use of XML with DTDs: Examine application input to identify XML input that leverage the use of one or more DTDs. | Techniques |
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| Examine any available documentation for the application that discusses expected XML input. | | Exercise the application using XML input with and without a DTD specified. Failure without DTD likely indicates use of DTD. |
Exploit Craft and inject XML containg malicious DTD payload: | Techniques |
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| Inject XML expansion attack that creates a Denial of Service impact on the targeted server using its DTD. | | Inject XML External Entity (XEE) attack that can cause the disclosure of confidential information, execute abitrary code, create a Denial of Service of the targeted server, or several other malicious impacts. |
Prerequisites
| The target must be running an XML based application that leverages DTDs. |
Mitigations
| Design: Sanitize incoming DTDs to prevent excessive expansion or other actions that could result in impacts like resource depletion. |
| Implementation: Disallow the inclusion of DTDs as part of incoming messages. |
| Implementation: Use XML parsing tools that protect against DTD attacks. |
References  Content History | Submissions |
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| Submission Date | Submitter | Organization |
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| 2014-06-23 (Version 2.6) | CAPEC Content Team | The MITRE Corporation | | | Modifications |
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| Modification Date | Modifier | Organization |
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| 2017-08-04 (Version 2.11) | CAPEC Content Team | The MITRE Corporation | | Updated Attack_Phases, Description, Description Summary, Solutions_and_Mitigations | | 2019-04-04 (Version 3.1) | CAPEC Content Team | The MITRE Corporation | | Updated Related_Weaknesses | | 2020-07-30 (Version 3.3) | CAPEC Content Team | The MITRE Corporation | | Updated Related_Attack_Patterns | | 2020-12-17 (Version 3.4) | CAPEC Content Team | The MITRE Corporation | | Updated Related_Attack_Patterns |
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