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ca3076fundamentals/code-analysis/quality-rules

Code analysis

CA3076: Insecure XSLT Script Execution

Learn about code analysis rule CA3076: Insecure XSLT Script Execution

CA3076 Security enabled by default in .NET 10: No
Fix is breaking or non-breaking Non-breakingApplicable languages C# and Visual Basic

Cause

If you execute Extensible Stylesheets Language Transformations (XSLT) in .NET applications insecurely, the processor might resolve untrusted URI references that could disclose sensitive information to attackers, leading to denial of service and cross-site attacks. For more information, see XSLT Security Considerations (.NET Guide).

Rule description

XSLT is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard for transforming XML data. XSLT is typically used to write style sheets to transform XML data to other formats such as HTML, fixed-length text, comma-separated text, or a different XML format. Although prohibited by default, you might choose to enable it for your project.

To ensure you're not exposing an attack surface, this rule triggers whenever the XslCompiledTransform.System.Xml.Xsl.XslCompiledTransform.Load receives insecure combination instances of System.Xml.Xsl.XsltSettings and System.Xml.XmlResolver, which allows malicious script processing.

How to fix violations

When to suppress warnings

Unless you're sure that the input is known to be from a trusted source, do not suppress a rule from this warning.

Suppress a warning

If you just want to suppress a single violation, add preprocessor directives to your source file to disable and then re-enable the rule.

csharp
#pragma warning disable CA3076
// The code that's violating the rule is on this line.
#pragma warning restore CA3076

To disable the rule for a file, folder, or project, set its severity to none in the configuration file.

ini
[*.{cs,vb}]
dotnet_diagnostic.CA3076.severity = none

For more information, see How to suppress code analysis warnings.

Pseudo-code examples

Violation that uses XsltSettings.TrustedXslt

csharp
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Xsl;

namespace TestNamespace
{
    class TestClass
    {
         void TestMethod()
        {
             XslCompiledTransform xslCompiledTransform = new XslCompiledTransform();
             var settings = XsltSettings.TrustedXslt;
             var resolver = new XmlUrlResolver();
             xslCompiledTransform.Load("testStylesheet", settings, resolver); // warn
        }
    }
}

Solution that uses XsltSettings.Default

csharp
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Xsl;

namespace TestNamespace
{
    class TestClass
    {
        void TestMethod()
        {
            XslCompiledTransform xslCompiledTransform = new XslCompiledTransform();
            var settings = XsltSettings.Default;
            var resolver = new XmlUrlResolver();
            xslCompiledTransform.Load("testStylesheet", settings, resolver);
        }
    }
}

Violation—document function and script execution not disabled

csharp
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Xsl;

namespace TestNamespace
{
    class TestClass
    {
        private static void TestMethod(XsltSettings settings)
        {
            try
            {
                XslCompiledTransform xslCompiledTransform = new XslCompiledTransform();
                var resolver = new XmlUrlResolver();
                xslCompiledTransform.Load("testStylesheet", settings, resolver); // warn
            }
            catch { throw; }
            finally { }
        }
    }
}

Solution—disable document function and script execution

csharp
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Xsl;

namespace TestNamespace
{
    class TestClass
    {
        private static void TestMethod(XsltSettings settings)
        {
            try
            {
                XslCompiledTransform xslCompiledTransform = new XslCompiledTransform();
                settings.EnableDocumentFunction = false;
                settings.EnableScript = false;
                var resolver = new XmlUrlResolver();
                xslCompiledTransform.Load("testStylesheet", settings, resolver);
            }
            catch { throw; }
            finally { }
        }
    }
}

See also