Hacking Java XML Input via External Entity Injection
- January 14, 2021
- 2783 Unique Views
- < 1 min read
Java natively supplies many different options to parse XML. However, all available parsers in Java have XML eXternal Entity (XXE) enabled by default. This makes Java XML libraries particularly vulnerable to XXE injection.
We already briefly went into XXE injection problem in an earlier blog post on foojay.io. However, let's go a little deeper. In the video below, I explain and demonstrate how an XXE injection attack works by extracting system data that should not be exposed. I also show you how you can solve this in your Java code in multiple ways.
In summary, with XXE enabled, it is possible to create malicious XML that reads the content of an arbitrary file on the machine. It’s not a surprise that XXE attacks are part of the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities.
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Java Champions & Developer Advocate and Software Engineer for Snyk. Passionate about Java, (Pure) Functional Programming, and Cybersecurity. Co-leading the Virtual JUG, NLJUG and DevSecCon community. Brian is also an Oracle Groundbreaker Ambassador and regular international speaker on mostly Java-related conferences.
Comments (2)
Stephan
3 weeks agoHey, you might consider adding these other VoxxedDays events too for 2025 @ https://events.voxxeddays.com #Thanks
Geertjan
3 weeks agoThanks, will do, Stephan!