> ** Reply to message from "Karl Waclawek" <> on Thu, 14 Nov
> 2002 16:15:41 -0500
>
> > are there any well-known ways to protect against
> > malicious XML, e.g. XML that causes your parser
> > to eat up all memory?
>
> Disconnect your machine from any networks before you start parsing.
Well - we - the Expat team have just been notified of a
"security vulnerability" in Expat by a company called Sanctum,
http://www.sanctuminc.com/ .
No idea who they are, and I don't agree with their assessment,
i.e. it is not Expat's job to check memory use. That is
the memory manager's job.
Anyway, their example uses a really trivial internal subset
to bring down a SOAP server. I wonder if there are more
well known XML examples that can cause a parser to eat
up all memory.
Properly used, Expat is already equipped to handle such
situations since it allows for a pluggable memory handler.
Karl
