CAPECattack pattern

CAPEC-48 Passing Local Filenames to Functions That Expect a URL

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

Description

This attack relies on client side code to access local files and resources instead of URLs. When the client browser is expecting a URL string, but instead receives a request for a local file, that execution is likely to occur in the browser process space with the browser's authority to local files. The attacker can send the results of this request to the local files out to a site that they control. This attack may be used to steal sensitive authentication data (either local or remote), or to gain system profile information to launch further attacks.

Execution flow

1. [Explore] [Identify web application URL inputs] Review application inputs to find those that are designed to be URLs. 2. [Experiment] [Identify URL inputs allowing local access.] Execute test local commands via each URL input to determine which are successful. 3. [Exploit] [Execute malicious commands] Using the identified URL inputs that allow local command execution, execute malicious commands.

Prerequisites

• The victim's software must not differentiate between the location and type of reference passed the client software, e.g. browser

Skills required

• [Medium] Attacker identifies known local files to exploit

Consequences

• Confidentiality: Read Data • Integrity: Modify Data

Mitigations

• Implementation: Ensure all content that is delivered to client is sanitized against an acceptable content specification. • Implementation: Ensure all configuration files and resource are either removed or protected when promoting code into production. • Design: Use browser technologies that do not allow client side scripting. • Implementation: Perform input validation for all remote content. • Implementation: Perform output validation for all remote content. • Implementation: Disable scripting languages such as JavaScript in browser

Related

Child of · CAPEC (1)

  • CAPEC-212 Functionality Misuse attack pattern

Weakness · CWE (2)

  • CWE-241 Improper Handling of Unexpected Data Type weakness
  • CWE-706 Use of Incorrectly-Resolved Name or Reference weakness

Referenced by CWE · attack pattern (2)

  • CWE-241 Improper Handling of Unexpected Data Type weakness
  • CWE-706 Use of Incorrectly-Resolved Name or Reference weakness