How does a Argument Injection attack work?

It typically unfolds over 3 phases. It begins with: [Discovery of potential injection vectors] Using an automated tool or manual discovery, the attacker identifies services or methods with arguments that could potentially be used as injection vectors (OS, API, SQL procedures, etc.).

How do you prevent CAPEC-6?

Design: Do not program input values directly on command shell, instead treat user input as guilty until proven innocent. Build a function that takes user input and converts it to applications specific types and values, stripping or filtering out all unauthorized commands and characters in the process.

What weaknesses does CAPEC-6 target?

CAPEC-6 exploits 6 CWE weaknesses, including CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')), CWE-78 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')), CWE-146 (Improper Neutralization of Expression/Command Delimiters), CWE-184 (Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs).

How severe is CAPEC-6?

MITRE rates CAPEC-6 as High severity with high likelihood of attack.

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Standard attack pattern

Draft

CAPEC-6: Argument Injection

An attacker changes the behavior or state of a targeted application through injecting data or command syntax through the targets use of non-validated and non-filtered arguments of exposed services or methods.

Last updated June 1, 2026

High

Typical severity

Per MITRE

High

Likelihood of attack

Per MITRE

6

Related weaknesses

CWEs this targets

Standard

Abstraction

MITRE classification

Overview

CAPEC-6 (Argument Injection) is a standard-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.

How the attack works

The phases an attacker typically follows.

Step 1
Explore
[Discovery of potential injection vectors] Using an automated tool or manual discovery, the attacker identifies services or methods with arguments that could potentially be used as injection vectors (OS, API, SQL procedures, etc.).
- Manually cover the application and record the possible places where arguments could be passed into external systems.
- Use a spider, for web applications, to create a list of URLs and associated inputs.
Step 2
Experiment
[1. Attempt variations on argument content] Possibly using an automated tool, the attacker will perform injection variations of the arguments.
- Use a very large list of probe strings in order to detect if there is a positive result, and, what type of system has been targeted (if obscure).
- Use a proxy tool to record results, error messages and/or log if accessible.
Step 3
Exploit
[Abuse of the application] The attacker injects specific syntax into a particular argument in order to generate a specific malicious effect in the targeted application.
- Manually inject specific payload into targeted argument.

What the attacker needs

Prerequisites

Target software fails to strip all user-supplied input of any content that could cause the shell to perform unexpected actions.
Software must allow for unvalidated or unfiltered input to be executed on operating system shell, and, optionally, the system configuration must allow for output to be sent back to client.

Skills required

Medium skill: The attacker has to identify injection vector, identify the operating system-specific commands, and optionally collect the output.

Resources required

Ability to communicate synchronously or asynchronously with server. Optionally, ability to capture output directly through synchronous communication or other method such as FTP.

Consequences

What a successful CAPEC-6 attack can achieve.

Gain Privileges

Affects: Confidentiality, Access Control, Authorization

Modify Data

Affects: Integrity

Read Data

Affects: Confidentiality

How to mitigate it

Defenses that reduce the risk of CAPEC-6.

Design: Do not program input values directly on command shell, instead treat user input as guilty until proven innocent. Build a function that takes user input and converts it to applications specific types and values, stripping or filtering out all unauthorized commands and characters in the process.
Design: Limit program privileges, so if metacharacters or other methods circumvent program input validation routines and shell access is attained then it is not running under a privileged account. chroot jails create a sandbox for the application to execute in, making it more difficult for an attacker to elevate privilege even in the case that a compromise has occurred.
Implementation: Implement an audit log that is written to a separate host, in the event of a compromise the audit log may be able to provide evidence and details of the compromise.

Examples

A recent example instance of argument injection occurred against Java Web Start technology, which eases the client side deployment for Java programs. The JNLP files that are used to describe the properties for the program. The client side Java runtime used the arguments in the property setting to define execution parameters, but if the attacker appends commands to an otherwise legitimate property file, then these commands are sent to the client command shell. [REF-482]

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about CAPEC-6.

What is CAPEC-6?: An attacker changes the behavior or state of a targeted application through injecting data or command syntax through the targets use of non-validated and non-filtered arguments of exposed services or methods.
How does a Argument Injection attack work?: It typically unfolds over 3 phases. It begins with: [Discovery of potential injection vectors] Using an automated tool or manual discovery, the attacker identifies services or methods with arguments that could potentially be used as injection vectors (OS, API, SQL procedures, etc.).
How do you prevent CAPEC-6?: Design: Do not program input values directly on command shell, instead treat user input as guilty until proven innocent. Build a function that takes user input and converts it to applications specific types and values, stripping or filtering out all unauthorized commands and characters in the process.
What weaknesses does CAPEC-6 target?: CAPEC-6 exploits 6 CWE weaknesses, including CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')), CWE-78 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')), CWE-146 (Improper Neutralization of Expression/Command Delimiters), CWE-184 (Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs).
How severe is CAPEC-6?: MITRE rates CAPEC-6 as High severity with high likelihood of attack.

References

Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.

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