Findings
Undocumented Content-Type
Updated: June 19, 2025
Description
Response has Content-Type that is not documented in the schema.
Handling unknown Content-Type
values can introduce security risks. For instance, a malicious payload might be treated as a harmless data type, leading to vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting (XSS) or other security threats.
Example Attack
An API endpoint meant to return JSON accidentally responds with an HTML Content-Type
due to a misconfiguration or an error. If the response contains unsanitized user-generated content, attackers could embed malicious JavaScript in the response. When processed by the client, this script might execute in the user's browser, resulting in a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack. Properly documenting and validating Content-Type
values would prevent such an attack by ensuring strict adherence to the intended response formats.
Remediation
Properly document all content types that an endpoint can deliver in a response.