Python: Mention more sanitisation options in py/url-redirection qhelp.

Author: Max Schaefer

python/ql/src/Security/CWE-601/UrlRedirect.qhelp

@@ -16,6 +16,10 @@ To guard against untrusted URL redirection, it is advisable to avoid putting use
 directly into a redirect URL. Instead, maintain a list of authorized
 redirects on the server; then choose from that list based on the user input provided.
 </p>
+<p>
+If this is not possible, then the user input should be validated in some other way,
+for example, by verifying that the target URL does not include an explicit host name.
+</p>
 </recommendation>
 
 <example>
@@ -27,11 +31,29 @@ without validating the input, which facilitates phishing attacks:
 <sample src="examples/redirect_bad.py"/>
 
 <p>
-One way to remedy the problem is to validate the user input against a known fixed string
-before doing the redirection:
+If you know the set of valid redirect targets, you can maintain a list of them on the server
+and check that the user input is in that list:
 </p>
 
 <sample src="examples/redirect_good.py"/>
+
+<p>
+Often this is not possible, so an alternative is to check that the target URL does not
+specify an explicit host name. For example, the Django framework provides a
+function <code>url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme</code> that can be used to check that a
+URL is safe to redirect to, as shown in the following example:
+</p>
+
+<sample src="examples/redirect_good2.py"/>
+
+<p>
+Note that many browsers accept backslash characters (<code>\</code>) as equivalent to
+forward slash characters (<code>/</code>) in URLs, so it is important to account for this
+when validating the URL, for example by first replacing all backslashes with forward
+slashes. Django's <code>url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme</code> function
+does this automatically, but other libraries may not.
+</p>
+
 </example>
 
 <references>

python/ql/src/Security/CWE-601/examples/redirect_good.py

@@ -10,4 +10,5 @@ def hello():
     if target == VALID_REDIRECT:
         return redirect(target, code=302)
     else:
-        ... # Error
+        # ignore the target and redirect to the home page
+        return redirect('/', code=302)

python/ql/src/Security/CWE-601/examples/redirect_good2.py

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect
+from django.shortcuts import redirect
+from django.utils.http import url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme
+from django.views import View
+
+class RedirectView(View):
+    def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
+        target = request.GET.get('target', '')
+        if url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme(target, allowed_hosts=None):
+            return HttpResponseRedirect(target)
+        else:
+            # ignore the target and redirect to the home page
+            return redirect('/')