I think you are attacking it from the wrong angle by trying to encode all posted data.
Note that a "<
" could also come from other outside sources, like a database field, a configuration, a file, a feed and so on.
Furthermore, "<
" is not inherently dangerous. It's only dangerous in a specific context: when writing strings that haven't been encoded to HTML output (because of XSS).
In other contexts different sub-strings are dangerous, for example, if you write an user-provided URL into a link, the sub-string "javascript:
" may be dangerous. The single quote character on the other hand is dangerous when interpolating strings in SQL queries, but perfectly safe if it is a part of a name submitted from a form or read from a database field.
The bottom line is: you can't filter random input for dangerous characters, because any character may be dangerous under the right circumstances. You should encode at the point where some specific characters may become dangerous because they cross into a different sub-language where they have special meaning. When you write a string to HTML, you should encode characters that have special meaning in HTML, using Server.HtmlEncode. If you pass a string to a dynamic SQL statement, you should encode different characters (or better, let the framework do it for you by using prepared statements or the like)..
When you are sure you HTML-encode everywhere you pass strings to HTML, then set ValidateRequest="false"
in the <%@ Page ... %>
directive in your .aspx
file(s).
In .NET 4 you may need to do a little more. Sometimes it's necessary to also add <httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0" />
to web.config (reference).
I was experiencing the same problem today, but I think I have found a passable work-around. It turns out that specifying the Response.Status code resolves this issue.
private void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// ...snip...
Response.StatusCode = 500;
Server.Transfer(somePath, false);
// ...snip...
}
Unfortunately, if you debug the page, it appears that the SecurityPermissions error still occurs. I'm unsure as to how much of a problem this really is since the Server.Transfer will continue without error, and there is no noticeable affect to the user.
I would be interested to know if anyone has thoughts or opinions on the matter.
Best Answer
Apparently removing the false argument fixed this. It does generate a security exception when the redirect executes, but it redirects just fine