Detailed attack pattern
Draft
CAPEC-221: Data Serialization External Entities Blowup
This attack takes advantage of the entity replacement property of certain data serialization languages (e.g., XML, YAML, etc.) where the value of the replacement is a URI. A well-crafted file could have the entity refer to a URI that consumes a large amount of resources to create a denial of service condition. This can cause the system to either freeze, crash, or execute arbitrary code depending on the URI.
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Typical severity
Per MITRE
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Likelihood of attack
Per MITRE
1
Related weaknesses
CWEs this targets
Detailed
Abstraction
MITRE classification
Overview
CAPEC-221 (Data Serialization External Entities Blowup) is a detailed-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.