perl-security

Perl Security Patterns

Comprehensive security guidelines for Perl applications covering input validation, injection prevention, and secure coding practices.

When to Activate

• Handling user input in Perl applications
• Building Perl web applications (CGI, Mojolicious, Dancer2, Catalyst)
• Reviewing Perl code for security vulnerabilities
• Performing file operations with user-supplied paths
• Executing system commands from Perl
• Writing DBI database queries

How It Works

Start with taint-aware input boundaries, then move outward: validate and untaint inputs, keep filesystem and process execution constrained, and use parameterized DBI queries everywhere. The examples below show the safe defaults this skill expects you to apply before shipping Perl code that touches user input, the shell, or the network.

Taint Mode

Perl's taint mode (-T) tracks data from external sources and prevents it from being used in unsafe operations without explicit validation.

Enabling Taint Mode

#!/usr/bin/perl -T
use v5.36;

# Tainted: anything from outside the program
my $input    = $ARGV[0];        # Tainted
my $env_path = $ENV{PATH};      # Tainted
my $form     = <STDIN>;         # Tainted
my $query    = $ENV{QUERY_STRING}; # Tainted

# Sanitize PATH early (required in taint mode)
$ENV{PATH} = '/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin';
delete @ENV{qw(IFS CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)};

Untainting Pattern

use v5.36;

# Good: Validate and untaint with a specific regex
sub untaint_username($input) {
    if ($input =~ /^([a-zA-Z0-9_]{3,30})$/) {
        return $1;  # $1 is untainted
    }
    die "Invalid username: must be 3-30 alphanumeric characters\n";
}

# Good: Validate and untaint a file path
sub untaint_filename($input) {
    if ($input =~ m{^([a-zA-Z0-9._-]+)$}) {
        return $1;
    }
    die "Invalid filename: contains unsafe characters\n";
}

# Bad: Overly permissive untainting (defeats the purpose)
sub bad_untaint($input) {
    $input =~ /^(.*)$/s;
    return $1;  # Accepts ANYTHING — pointless
}