Web Hacking

Chapter 12 Web Hacking Revised 5-1-09

Popular Web Servers Microsoft IIS/ASP/ASP.NET LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) Oracle WebLogic Link Ch 12j IBM WebSphere Link Ch 12k

Attacking Web Server Vulnerabilities An attacker with the right set of tools and ready-made exploits can bring down a vulnerable web server in minutes Some of the most devastating Internet worms have historically exploited these kinds of vulnerabilities Code Red and Nimda attacked IIS vulnerabilities

Why the Risk is Decreasing The risk of such attacks is decreasing, because: Newer versions of Web servers are less vulnerable System administrators are better at configuring the platforms Vendor's "best practices" documents are better Patches come out more rapidly

Why the Risk is Decreasing Countermeasures are available, such as: Sanctum/Watchfire's AppShield A Web application firewall (link Ch_12n) Microsoft's URLScan Built in to IIS 6 and IIS 7 Link Ch_12o Automated vulnerability-scanning products and tools are available

Web Server Vulnerabilities Sample files Source code disclosure Canonicalization Server extensions Input validation (for example, buffer overflows)

Sample files Sample scripts and code snippets to illustrate creative use of a platform In Microsoft's IIS 4.0 Sample code was installed by default showcode. asp and codebrews.asp These files enabled an attacker to view almost any file on the server like this: http://192.168.51.101/msadc/Samples/SELECTOR/showcode.asp?source=/../.. /../../../boot.ini http://192.168.51.101/iissamples/exair/howitworks/codebrws.asp?source= /../../../../../winnt/repair/setup.log

Sample Files Countermeasure Remove sample files from production webservers If you need the sample files, you can get patches to improve them ColdFusion Expression Evaluator patch Link Ch 12p

Source Code Disclosure IIS 4 and 5 could reveal portions of source code through the HTR vulnerability (link Ch 12q) Apache Tomcat and Oracle WebLogic had similar issues Attack URLs: http://www.iisvictim.example/global.asa+.htr http://www.weblogicserver.example/index.js%70 http://www.tomcatserver.example/examples/jsp/num/ numguess.js%70

Source Code Disclosure Countermeasures Apply patches (these vulnerabilities were patched long ago) Remove unneeded sample files Never put sensitive data in source code of files You can never be sure source code is hidden

Canonicalization Attacks There are many ways to refer to the same file C:\text.txt ..\text.txt \\computer\C$\text.txt The process of resolving a resource to a standard (canonical) name is called canonicalization

ASP::$DATA Vulnerability Affected IIS 4 and earlier versions Just adding ::DATA to the end of an ASP page's URL revealed the source code http://xyz/myasp.asp::$DATA Link Ch 12r

Unicode/Double Decode Vulnerabilities Strings like %c0%af could be used to sneak characters like \ past URL filters Attack URL example: http://10.1.1.3/scripts/ ..%c0%af..%c0%af..%c0%af.. /winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir Exploited by the Nimda worm

Canonicalization Attack Countermeasures Patch your Web platform Compartmentalize your application directory structure Limit access of Web Application user to minimal required Clean URLs with URLScan and similar products Remove Unicode or double-hex-encoded characters before they reach the server

Server Extensions Code libraries tacked on to the core HTTP engine to provide extra features Dynamic script execution (for example, Microsoft ASP) Site indexing Internet Printing Protocol Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Server Extensions Each of these extensions has vulnerabilities, such as buffer overflows Microsoft WebDAV Translate: f problem Add "translate: f" to header of the HTTP GET request, and a \ to the end of the URL Reveals source code Links Ch 12u, v

Server Extensions Exploitation Countermeasures Patch or disable vulnerable extensions The Translate: f problem was patched long ago

Buffer Overflows Web servers, like all other computers, can be compromised by buffer overflows The Web server is easy to find, and connected to the Internet, so it is a common target

Famous Buffer Overflows IIS HTR Chunked Encoding Transfer Heap Overflow Affects Microsoft IIS 4.0, 5.0, and 5.1 Leads to remote denial of service or remote code execution at the IWAM_ MACHINENAME privilege level IIS's Indexing Service extension (idq.dll) A buffer overflow used by the infamous Code Red worm Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) vulnerability

Famous Buffer Overflows Apache mod_ssl vulnerability Also known as the Slapper worm Affects all versions up to and including Apache 2.0.40 Results in remote code execution at the super-user level Apache also suffered from a vulnerability in the way it handled HTTP requests encoded with chunked encoding Resulted in a worm dubbed "Scalper" Thought to be the first Apache worm

Buffer Overflow Countermeasures Apply software patches Scan your server with a vulnerability scanner

Web Server Vulnerability Scanners Nikto checks for common Web server vulnerabilities It is not subtle—it leaves obvious traces in log files Link Ch 12z01 Whisker is another Web server vulnerability scanner Nikto version 2 uses LibWhisker 2, so it may replace Whisker

Nikto Demonstration Scan DVL Web Server with Nikto

Web Application Hacking Attacks on applications themselves, as opposed to the web server software upon which these applications run The same techniques Input-validation attacks Source code disclosure attacks etc.

Finding Vulnerable Web Apps with Google You can find unprotected directories with searches like this: "Index of /admin" "Index of /password" "Index of /mail" You can find password hints, vulnerable Web servers with FrontPage, MRTG traffic analysis pages, .NET information, improperly configured Outlook Web Access (OWA) servers… And many more Link Ch 1a

Web Crawling Examine a Web site carefully for Low Hanging Fruit Local path information Backend server names and IP addresses SQL query strings with passwords Informational comments Look in static and dynamic pages, include and other support files, source code

Web-Crawling Tools wget is a simple command-line tool to download a page, and can be used in scripts Available for Linux and Windows Link Ch 12z03 Offline Explorer Pro Commercial Win32 product

Web Application Assessment Once the target application content has been crawled and thoroughly analyzed Probe the features of the application Authentication Session management Database interaction Generic input validation Application logic

Tools for Web Application Hacking Browser plug-ins Free tool suites Commercial web application scanners

Tamper Data Demo Vulnerable Message Board

Acts like a proxy server You can see POST data and alter it This will defeat client-side validation

JavaScript Debugger Examine and step through JavaScript

Tool Suites Proxies sit between client and Web application server, like a man-in-the-middle attack Midrosoft Fiddler can intercept and log requests and responses

Tools for Web Application Assessment WebScarab Allows user to intercept and alter HTTP Includes spidering and fuzzing Runs on any platform Free, from OWASP Burp Suite Proxy, Repeater, Sequencer, Spider, Intruder Powerful tool to craft automated attacks Free version is limited

Expensive Commercial Tools HP WebInspect and Security Toolkit Rational AppScan Cenzic Hailstorm

Cenzic Hailstorm Highly rated commercial Web applicaion vulnerability scanner We should have a copy to use here soon Links Ch 11o, 11p

Common Web Application Vulnerabilities

Common Web Application Vulnerabilities Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) SQL Injection Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) HTTP Response Splitting

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks One user injects code that attacks another user Common on guestbooks, comment pages, forums, etc. Caused by failure to filter out HTML tags These characters < > " & Also watch out for hex-encoded versions %3c instead of < %3e instead of > %22 instead of "

Common XSS Payloads See link Ch 12z06

Cross-Site Scripting Countermeasures Filter out < > ( ) # & and the variants of them HTML-encode output, so a character like < becomes < -- that will stop scripts from running In IE 6 SP1 or later, an application can set HttpOnly Cookies, which prevents them from being accessed by scripts Analyze your applications for XSS vulnerabilities Fix the errors you find

Common Web Application Vulnerabilities SQL Injection

SQL Injection Comic xkcd.org – a great comic Link Ch 11i

Automated SQL Injection Tools Wpoison Runs on Linux SPIKE Proxy mieliekoek.pl SQL insertion crawler that tests all forms on a website for possible SQL insertion problems SPI Dynamics' SPI Toolkit Contains SQL Injector that automates SQL injection testing

SQL Injection Countermeasures Perform strict input validation Replace direct SQL statements with stored procedures, prepared statements, or ADO command objects That way they can't be modified Implement default error handling Use a general error message for all errors

SQL Injection Countermeasures Lock down ODBC Disable messaging to clients. Don't let regular SQL statements through. This ensures that no client, not just the web application, can execute arbitrary SQL. Lock down the database server configuration Specify users, roles, and permissions, so even if SQL statements are injected, they can't do any harm

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Hijack a session by stealing cookies We did this with hamster and ferret

HTTP Response Splitting Demonstrated earlier with WebGoat

Web Hacking

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