CWE-551—Incorrect Behavior Order: Authorization Before Parsing and Canonicalization
PUBLISHEDweakness record
released 2006-07-19 · last modified 2025-12-11
Metadata
Weakness Name
Incorrect Behavior Order: Authorization Before Parsing and Canonicalization
Description
If a web server does not fully parse requested URLs before it examines them for authorization, it may be possible for an attacker to bypass authorization protection.
For instance, the character strings /./ and / both mean current directory. If /SomeDirectory is a protected directory and an attacker requests /./SomeDirectory, the attacker may be able to gain access to the resource if /./ is not converted to / before the authorization check is performed.