Full Trust CLR Verification issue: Exploiting Passing Reference Types by Reference

1) create a file called byValueTypeTest.cs and compile it using csc byValueTypeTest.csc

using System; using System.Text; namespace Owasp {   class byValueTypetest {       public static void Main {           // this will compile: object objString = (object)"I'm a String"; // this will not compile: // string objString = "I'm a String"; // it will throw the error: /*               byValueTypeTest.cs(14,4): error CS1502: The best overloaded method match for 'Owasp.byValueTypetest.byRefObject(ref object)' has some invalid arguments byValueTypeTest.cs(14,20): error CS1503: Argument '1': cannot convert from 'ref string' to 'ref object' */           // which is why we need to do it directly in IL            // values before call Console.WriteLine("\nbefore: " + objString + "\n type: " + objString.GetType); // this method will allocate a StringBuilder variable to objString byRefObject(ref objString); // values after call Console.WriteLine("\nafter: " + objString + "\n type: " + objString.GetType); }              public static void byRefObject(ref object oVar) {                              StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("I'm a StringBuilder"); oVar = sb; //           Console.WriteLine(oVar); }   } }

2) execute it just to see what it does:

before: I'm a String type: System.String

after: I'm a StringBuilder type: System.Text.StringBuilder

3) then ILDASM it

ildasm byValueTypeTest.exe /out:_byValtest.il

4) make this change in the IL code

// change from //     .locals init ( object V_0, //                       object[] V_1) // to     .locals init (  string V_0,                        object[] V_1)

5) ILASM it

ilasm _byValTest.il

6) execute it, and the result will be

before: I'm a String type: System.String

after: I'm a StringBuilder type: System.Text.StringBuilder

7) Open assembly in reflector to confirm that the IL manipulation was successfull

public static void Main {     Console.WriteLine("\n\n staticInvokeTest\n\n"); string text1 = "I'm a String"; object[] objArray1 = new object[] { "\nbefore: ", text1, "\n type: ", text1.GetType } ; Console.WriteLine(string.Concat(objArray1)); byValueTypetest.byRefObject(ref text1); objArray1 = new object[] { "\nafter: ", text1, "\n type: ", text1.GetType } ; Console.WriteLine(string.Concat(objArray1)); }

8) compare with with the output and you will see that we were able to change the type of text1 (using reflector's variable name) from System.String to System.Text.StringBuilder