Re: IBM Websphere Commerce Server 5.5 XSS detect mode

[The Crocodile <tcroc () pasture com>]

While I'm sure this is a great technique to do, and certainly a step in
the right direction for many applications, the better way to validate
data supplied by the client side would be to compare the input against a
known set of GOOD data and if there are characters that are not in this
set of known good, then reject the request. 

For example: An input field of a phone number should only accept numbers
and dashes, it should not accept any other characters and should reject
on any input that contains anything other than numbers or dashes. (or at
least give an error to the user). Validation routines ideally should be
done on a per field basis.

Rejecting data based on it containing certain known bad characters is
like firewalls listing all the things that need to be dropped and
accepting everything else. It's not really best practice.

I hope this makes sense.

--TheCrocodile

On Mon, 2004-05-10 at 22:37, Jim+Lisa Weiler wrote:
> IBM Websphere Commerce server 5.5 has a switch that causes the server to
> examine all fields in POSTs and all variables in GETs and check the input
> against a set of strings and characters that are not allowed, and return one
> of 3 customs web pages if non allowed strings or characters are found. Does
> anyone have experience with this feature in Websphere Commerce Server?
>
> Thanks, Jim