CWE-1046: Creation of Immutable Text Using String Concatenation
Learn about CWE-1046 (Creation of Immutable Text Using String Concatenation), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Creation of Immutable Text Using String Concatenation?
• Overview: Creation of Immutable Text Using String Concatenation occurs when a program creates a new string with each concatenation, particularly within loops, leading to inefficient memory usage and slower performance.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to degrade application performance by forcing repeated string operations.
- Common attack patterns involve triggering code paths that perform extensive string concatenation in loops, potentially leading to denial of service through resource exhaustion.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences include increased memory usage and CPU consumption, slowing down the application.
- Potential cascading effects include reduced application responsiveness and possible denial of service if the system becomes unresponsive.
- Business impact includes degraded user experience and increased operational costs due to inefficient resource usage.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes include using a StringBuilder or similar mutable data structures for string concatenation within loops.
- Security best practices involve profiling code to identify performance bottlenecks and refactoring inefficient patterns.
- Recommended tools and frameworks include static analysis tools to detect inefficient string operations and performance monitoring tools to identify areas for optimization.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Not specified