How to Block Embedded Scripts from your File Upload Process using C#/.NET Core

If we aren’t careful, motivated threat actors can compromise our system by injecting malicious scripts into seemingly innocent file formats. If we don’t detect these files right away, both internal and external system users are at major risk of losing valuable data, and our system might even be compromised entirely.

It’s good practice to block any files containing embedded scripts from entering our sensitive storage locations, and the free-to-use API provided below makes it easy to do that. By setting the allowScripts Boolean to “False” in your request, we can ensure any files hiding scripts in their encoding receive a CleanResult: False value in the API response body. This is the same response provided by the API when it detects any virus and malware signatures, so we can easily treat all upload threats the same with zero hassle.

Below, we can take advantage of ready-to-run C# code examples to quickly structure our API call. To install the .NET Core SDK via NuGet, let’s run the following command in our Package Manager console:

Install-Package Cloudmersive.APIClient.NETCore.VirusScan -Version 2.0.4

After that, let’s structure our API call with the following code:

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NETCore.VirusScan.Api;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NETCore.VirusScan.Client;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NETCore.VirusScan.Model;

namespace Example
{
    public class ScanFileAdvancedExample
    {
        public void main()
        {
            // Configure API key authorization: Apikey
            Configuration.Default.AddApiKey("Apikey", "YOUR_API_KEY");

            var apiInstance = new ScanApi();
            var inputFile = new System.IO.FileStream("C:\\temp\\inputfile", System.IO.FileMode.Open); // System.IO.Stream | Input file to perform the operation on.
            var allowExecutables = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block executable files (program code) from being allowed in the input file.  Default is false (recommended). (optional) 
            var allowInvalidFiles = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block invalid files, such as a PDF file that is not really a valid PDF file, or a Word Document that is not a valid Word Document.  Default is false (recommended). (optional) 
            var allowScripts = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block script files, such as a PHP files, Python scripts, and other malicious content or security threats that can be embedded in the file.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended). (optional) 
            var allowPasswordProtectedFiles = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block password protected and encrypted files, such as encrypted zip and rar files, and other files that seek to circumvent scanning through passwords.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended). (optional) 
            var allowMacros = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block macros and other threats embedded in document files, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint embedded Macros, and other files that contain embedded content threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended). (optional) 
            var allowXmlExternalEntities = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block XML External Entities and other threats embedded in XML files, and other files that contain embedded content threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended). (optional) 
            var allowInsecureDeserialization = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block Insecure Deserialization and other threats embedded in JSON and other object serialization files, and other files that contain embedded content threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended). (optional) 
            var allowHtml = true;  // bool? | Set to false to block HTML input in the top level file; HTML can contain XSS, scripts, local file accesses and other threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended) [for API keys created prior to the release of this feature default is true for backward compatability]. (optional) 
            var restrictFileTypes = restrictFileTypes_example;  // string | Specify a restricted set of file formats to allow as clean as a comma-separated list of file formats, such as .pdf,.docx,.png would allow only PDF, PNG and Word document files.  All files must pass content verification against this list of file formats, if they do not, then the result will be returned as CleanResult=false.  Set restrictFileTypes parameter to null or empty string to disable; default is disabled. (optional) 

            try
            {
                // Advanced Scan a file for viruses
                VirusScanAdvancedResult result = apiInstance.ScanFileAdvanced(inputFile, allowExecutables, allowInvalidFiles, allowScripts, allowPasswordProtectedFiles, allowMacros, allowXmlExternalEntities, allowInsecureDeserialization, allowHtml, restrictFileTypes);
                Debug.WriteLine(result);
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Debug.Print("Exception when calling ScanApi.ScanFileAdvanced: " + e.Message );
            }
        }
    }
}

Now we can authenticate our requests for free by supplying a free-tier Cloudmersive API key. These allow up to 800 API calls per month with zero commitment, so we can significantly improve our threat profile at no cost.