CWE - CWE-107: Struts: Unused Validation Form (4.18)

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CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-107: Struts: Unused Validation Form

Weakness ID: 107

Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
Abstraction: Variant Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.

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Description

An unused validation form indicates that validation logic is not up-to-date.

Extended Description

It is easy for developers to forget to update validation logic when they remove or rename action form mappings. One indication that validation logic is not being properly maintained is the presence of an unused validation form.

Common Consequences

Section HelpThis table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.

Impact	Details
Quality Degradation	Scope: Other

Potential Mitigations

Phase(s)	Mitigation
Implementation	Remove the unused Validation Form from the validation.xml file.

Relationships

Section Help This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.

Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
ChildOf	Class Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.	1164	Irrelevant Code

Relevant to the view "Seven Pernicious Kingdoms" (View-700)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
ChildOf	Class Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.	20	Improper Input Validation

Modes Of Introduction

Section HelpThe different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.

Phase	Note
Implementation
Operation

Applicable Platforms

Section HelpThis listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.

Languages

Java (Undetermined Prevalence)

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

In the following example the class RegistrationForm is a Struts framework ActionForm Bean that will maintain user input data from a registration webpage for an online business site. The user will enter registration data and, through the Struts framework, the RegistrationForm bean will maintain the user data in the form fields using the private member variables. The RegistrationForm class uses the Struts validation capability by extending the ValidatorForm class and including the validation for the form fields within the validator XML file, validator.xml.

(bad code)

Example Language: Java

public class RegistrationForm extends org.apache.struts.validator.ValidatorForm {

// private variables for registration form
private String name;
private String address;
private String city;
private String state;
private String zipcode;
// no longer using the phone form field

// private String phone;
private String email;

public RegistrationForm() {

super();

}

// getter and setter methods for private variables
...

}

(bad code)

Example Language: XML

<form-validation>

</field>
<field property="address" depends="required">

</field>
<field property="city" depends="required">

</field>
<field property="state" depends="required,mask">

<var-name>mask</var-name>
<var-value>[a-zA-Z]{2}</var-value>

</var>

</field>
<field property="zipcode" depends="required,mask">

<var-name>mask</var-name>
<var-value>\d{5}</var-value>

</var>

</field>
<field property="phone" depends="required,mask">

<var-name>mask</var-name>
<var-value>^([0-9]{3})(-)([0-9]{4}|[0-9]{4})$</var-value>

</var>

</field>
<field property="email" depends="required,email">

</field>

</form>

</formset>

</form-validation>

However, the validator XML file, validator.xml, for the RegistrationForm class includes the validation form for the user input form field "phone" that is no longer used by the input form and the RegistrationForm class. Any validation forms that are no longer required should be removed from the validator XML file, validator.xml.

The existence of unused forms may be an indication to attackers that this code is out of date or poorly maintained.

Weakness Ordinalities

Ordinality	Description
Resultant	(where the weakness is typically related to the presence of some other weaknesses)

Memberships

Section HelpThis MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	990	SFP Secondary Cluster: Tainted Input to Command
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1412	Comprehensive Categorization: Poor Coding Practices

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage ALLOWED

(this CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)

Reason Acceptable-Use

Rationale

This CWE entry is at the Variant level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.

Comments

Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

Taxonomy Mappings

Mapped Taxonomy Name	Node ID	Fit	Mapped Node Name
7 Pernicious Kingdoms	Struts: Unused Validation Form

References

[REF-6] Katrina Tsipenyuk, Brian Chess and Gary McGraw. "Seven Pernicious Kingdoms: A Taxonomy of Software Security Errors". NIST Workshop on Software Security Assurance Tools Techniques and Metrics. NIST. 2005年11月07日.
<https://samate.nist.gov/SSATTM_Content/papers/Seven%20Pernicious%20Kingdoms%20-%20Taxonomy%20of%20Sw%20Security%20Errors%20-%20Tsipenyuk%20-%20Chess%20-%20McGraw.pdf>.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)	7 Pernicious Kingdoms
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2023年06月29日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年06月29日	updated Mapping_Notes
2023年04月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年04月27日	updated Relationships
2022年04月28日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2022年04月28日	updated Relationships
2020年02月24日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020年02月24日	updated References, Relationships
2017年11月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2017年11月08日	updated Causal_Nature, Relationships
2014年07月30日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2014年07月30日	updated Relationships
2012年10月30日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2012年10月30日	updated Potential_Mitigations
2012年05月11日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2012年05月11日	updated Relationships
2011年06月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年06月27日	updated Common_Consequences
2011年06月01日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年06月01日	updated Common_Consequences
2010年06月21日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2010年06月21日	updated Demonstrative_Examples
2008年09月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2008年09月08日	updated Description, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings, Weakness_Ordinalities
2008年07月01日	Eric Dalci	Cigital
2008年07月01日	updated Potential_Mitigations, Time_of_Introduction

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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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