OpenACS

On openacs.org, we are experiencing numerous requests with

multiply very long and strange query variables like in the example

below. So far, it is not clear, whether these requests are the

consequence of a double encoding or a deliberate attack.  Many (most)

of the requests contain the query variable names containing the

(decoded) pattern "*amp;*".

This is a relatively new phenomenon. I cannot exclude that this is a

bug introduced lately in OpenACS, or a bug in an external bot, or

whatever. The problem with these query variables is that OpenACS

propagates these further, e.g., when updating query variables in

ad_dimensional, via export_vars, or return_urls.

Since OpenACS never uses these query-variables, these can be safely

skipped, without loosing functionality in OpenACS. It is possible to

construct examples, where skipping such variables can change the

semantics. Therefore, the change introduces a single function

util::suspicious_query_variable where in case of problems, the

skipping feature can be deactivated.

GET /api-doc/proc-browse?amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3borderby=name&type=All&amp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3borderby=name&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=Private&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3borderby=name&amp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3bamp%3btype=All HTTP/1.1" 200 62378 "" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; FriendlyCrawler/1.0) Chrome/120.0.6099.216 Safari/605.1.15" "1729029614.331581 0.109805 0.000434 0.004026 0.215927

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