B604: any_other_function_with_shell_equals_trueΒΆ

bandit.plugins.injection_shell.any_other_function_with_shell_equals_true(context, config)

B604: Test for any function with shell equals true

Python possesses many mechanisms to invoke an external executable. However, doing so may present a security issue if appropriate care is not taken to sanitize any user provided or variable input.

This plugin test is part of a family of tests built to check for process spawning and warn appropriately. Specifically, this plugin test interrogates method calls for the presence of a keyword parameter shell equalling true. It is related to detection of shell injection issues and is intended to catch custom wrappers to vulnerable methods that may have been created.

See also:

  • ../plugins/linux_commands_wildcard_injection
  • ../plugins/subprocess_popen_with_shell_equals_true
  • ../plugins/subprocess_without_shell_equals_true
  • ../plugins/start_process_with_no_shell
  • ../plugins/start_process_with_a_shell
  • ../plugins/start_process_with_partial_path

Config Options:

This plugin test shares a configuration with others in the same family, namely shell_injection. This configuration is divided up into three sections, subprocess, shell and no_shell. They each list Python calls that spawn subprocesses, invoke commands within a shell, or invoke commands without a shell (by replacing the calling process) respectively.

Specifically, this plugin excludes those functions listed under the subprocess section, these methods are tested in a separate specific test plugin and this exclusion prevents duplicate issue reporting.

shell_injection:
    # Start a process using the subprocess module, or one of its
    wrappers.
    subprocess: [subprocess.Popen, subprocess.call,
                 subprocess.check_call, subprocess.check_output,
                 utils.execute, utils.execute_with_timeout]
Example: 
>> Issue: Function call with shell=True parameter identified, possible
security issue.
   Severity: Medium   Confidence: High
   Location: ./examples/subprocess_shell.py:9
8 pop('/bin/gcc --version', shell=True)
9 Popen('/bin/gcc --version', shell=True)
10

See also

New in version 0.9.0.