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up vote 7 down vote favorite
1

Mostly asking for critiques of vulnerability. Am I using any functions or methods that are unsafe?

<?php
$menu = array( "page1","page2","page3" );
$defpage = "page1";

$section = $defpage;
if ( isset( $_GET['section'] ) ) $section = $_GET['section'];
if ( !in_array( $section, $menu ) ) $section = $defpage;
?>

This is code that checks if the section is in the array and then sets it as such, but hardwires it back to default if it's not valid.

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3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Is it safe? Yes, it will currently do the right thing.

One of the features that plays in to best practice though, is how future proof it is. Over time, code gets edited, changed, etc. What you want is to make the code 'fail safe' in the future too. What if someone comments out the second line, you end up with a problem.

A better way to write your code would be to set the default, and only change it if the input is valid:

<?php
$menu = array( "page1","page2","page3" );

$section = "page1";
$input = $_GET['section'];
if ( isset( $input ) && in_array( $input, $menu ) ) {
    $section = $input;
}

?>
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What I mean by "safe" is will it be safe from malicious code, injection, exploitation, etc, somehow people taking advantage of $_GET, etc. –  user3761993 yesterday
    
@user3761993 - 'safe' is a relative term. It is as safe as you can get (pun intended), within reason. Short of a PHP bug, you're good. –  rolfl♦ yesterday
2  
For what it matters: Will raise an Notice error if $_GET['section'] isn't defined and all errors are displayed (which I advise). Overall, I think it's a bad habit to avoid. +1 for the fail proof behavior. –  JeromeJ yesterday
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up vote 3 down vote

I think it is.

In general, you should be careful when using any type of data that the user can set when that data is passed to a SQL query, to a fopen call, to the HTML document or to the system shell (or similar things), because you would be giving that user some control over those resources.

In your case, you are allowing just the values in $menu for the $section variable. Anything else would set that to $defpage, so it looks fine to me.

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But is the $_GET safe? –  user3761993 yesterday
1  
"But is the $_GET safe" - what is the problem with $_GET? If you handle insecurely, everything is unsafe. There is no "safe by default" thing. –  Ayesh K yesterday
    
"NEVER trust user input". –  JeromeJ yesterday
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up vote 1 down vote

It's safe, but bad practice.

A 404 page would be a better default and practise. You should show a relevant page, in this case 404. Just set the headers correctly, and make one of them pretty/funny 404 pages.

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i agree with @Darius. It will help, in the long run, if you send failed attempts to a 404 page - and log these attempts. You will be surprised on what you will find in these logs. –  andrew 23 hours ago
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