CA2101: Specify marshaling for P/Invoke string arguments
TypeName | SpecifyMarshalingForPInvokeStringArguments |
CheckId | CA2101 |
Category | Microsoft.Globalization |
Breaking Change | Non-breaking |
When you convert from Unicode to ANSI, it is possible that not all Unicode characters can be represented in a specific ANSI code page. Best-fit mapping tries to solve this problem by substituting a character for the character that cannot be represented. The use of this feature can cause a potential security vulnerability because you cannot control the character that is chosen. For example, malicious code could intentionally create a Unicode string that contains characters that are not found in a particular code page, which are converted to file system special characters such as '..' or '/'. Note also that security checks for special characters frequently occur before the string is converted to ANSI.
Best-fit mapping is the default for the unmanaged conversion, WChar to MByte. Unless you explicitly disable best-fit mapping, your code might contain an exploitable security vulnerability because of this issue.
The following example shows a method that violates this rule, and then shows how to fix the violation.
using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; [assembly: System.Security.AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers()] namespace SecurityLibrary { class NativeMethods { // Violates rule: SpecifyMarshalingForPInvokeStringArguments. [DllImport("advapi32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)] internal static extern int RegCreateKey(IntPtr key, String subKey, out IntPtr result); // Satisfies rule: SpecifyMarshalingForPInvokeStringArguments. [DllImport("advapi32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)] internal static extern int RegCreateKey2(IntPtr key, String subKey, out IntPtr result); } }