The vCenter UI service must set URIEncoding to UTF-8.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-259114	SRG-APP-000251-AS-000165	VCUI-80-000065	SV-259114r961158_rule	2024-07-11	2

Description
Invalid user input occurs when a user inserts data or characters into a hosted application's data entry field and the hosted application is unprepared to process that data. This results in unanticipated application behavior, potentially leading to an application compromise. Invalid user input is one of the primary methods employed when attempting to compromise an application. An attacker can also enter Unicode characters into hosted applications in an effort to break out of the document home or root home directory or bypass security checks.

Description

Invalid user input occurs when a user inserts data or characters into a hosted application's data entry field and the hosted application is unprepared to process that data. This results in unanticipated application behavior, potentially leading to an application compromise. Invalid user input is one of the primary methods employed when attempting to compromise an application. An attacker can also enter Unicode characters into hosted applications in an effort to break out of the document home or root home directory or bypass security checks.

ℹ️ Check
At the command prompt, run the following command: # xmllint --xpath "//Connector[@URIEncoding != 'UTF-8'] \| //Connector[not[@URIEncoding]]" /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/server.xml Expected result: XPath set is empty If any connectors are returned, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Navigate to and open: /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/server.xml Configure the <Connector> node with the value: URIEncoding="UTF-8" Restart the service with the following command: # vmon-cli --restart vsphere-ui