TypeNameHandling caution in Newtonsoft Json

Question

On this link, in remarks section it's mentioned that:

TypeNameHandling should be used with caution when your application deserializes JSON from an external source. Incoming types should be validated with a custom SerializationBinder when deserializing with a value other than TypeNameHandling.None.

In what cases JSON from external source would be harmful if serialized/deserialized with TypeNameHandling.All? A working example would be appreciated.

Answer 1

When deserialize with TypeNameHandling.All and without a SerializationBinder checks json.net will try to create a instace of the type that comes as metadata in the JSON.

public class Car
{
    public string Maker { get; set; }
    public string Model { get; set; }
}

{
   "$type": "Car",
   "Maker": "Ford",
   "Model": "Explorer"
} //create a Car and set property values

But an attacker could send you dangerous types that exist in your code or in the framework.

i.e. from here System.CodeDom.Compiler.TempFileCollection is a serializable class whose purpose is to maintain a list of temporary files which resulted from a compilation process and delete them when they are no longer needed. To ensure that the files are deleted the class implements a finalizer that will be called when the object is being cleaned up by the Garbage Collector. An attacker would be able to construct a serialized version of this class which pointed its internal file collection to any file on a victims system. This will be deleted at some point after deserialization without any interaction from the deserializing application.

    [Serializable]
    public class TempFileCollection
    {
       private Hashtable files;
       // Other stuff...

       ~TempFileCollection()
       {
         if (KeepFiles) {return}
         foreach (string file in files.Keys)
         {
            File.Delete(file);
         }
       }
    }

   {
       "$type": "System.CodeDom.Compiler.TempFileCollection",
       "BasePath": "%SYSTEMDRIVE",
       "KeepFiles": "False",
       "TempDir": "%SYSTEMROOT%"
    } // or something like this, I just guessing but you got the idea