CAPECattack pattern

CAPEC-476 Signature Spoofing by Misrepresentation

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Abstraction
Detailed
Status
Draft
Likelihood of attack
Low
Typical severity
High
CAPEC version
3.9

Description

An attacker exploits a weakness in the parsing or display code of the recipient software to generate a data blob containing a supposedly valid signature, but the signer's identity is falsely represented, which can lead to the attacker manipulating the recipient software or its victim user to perform compromising actions.

Prerequisites

• Recipient is using signature verification software that does not clearly indicate potential homographs in the signer identity.Recipient is using signature verification software that contains a parsing vulnerability, or allows control characters in the signer identity field, such that a signature is mistakenly displayed as valid and from a known or authoritative signer.

Skills required

• [High] Attacker needs to understand the layout and composition of data blobs used by the target application. • [High] To discover a specific vulnerability, attacker needs to reverse engineer signature parsing, signature verification and signer representation code. • [High] Attacker may be required to create malformed data blobs and know how to insert them in a location that the recipient will visit.

Mitigations

• Ensure the application is using parsing and data display techniques that will accurately display control characters, international symbols and markings, and ultimately recognize potential homograph attacks.

Related

Child of · CAPEC (1)

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-290 Authentication Bypass by Spoofing weakness

Referenced by CWE · attack pattern (1)

  • CWE-290 Authentication Bypass by Spoofing weakness