CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Report generated by XSS.CX at Tue Apr 26 12:33:36 CDT 2011.

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1. Cross-site scripting (reflected)

2. Cacheable HTTPS response

2.1. https://outlet.softlayer.com/Sales/orderServer/18/1560

2.2. https://outlet.softlayer.com/Sales/orderServer/18/1560/

2.3. https://outlet.softlayer.com/favicon.ico

3. Content type incorrectly stated

1. Cross-site scripting (reflected) next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	https://outlet.softlayer.com
Path:	/Sales/orderServer/18/1560/

Issue detail

The value of the data%5BOrder%5D%5BsessionId%5D request parameter is copied into the value of an HTML tag attribute which is encapsulated in double quotation marks. The payload 25fdf"><script>alert(1)</script>089c50e3145b5f6b4 was submitted in the data%5BOrder%5D%5BsessionId%5D parameter. This input was echoed unmodified in the application's response.

This proof-of-concept attack demonstrates that it is possible to inject arbitrary JavaScript into the application's response.

The original request used the POST method, however it was possible to convert the request to use the GET method, to enable easier demonstration and delivery of the attack.

Issue background

Reflected cross-site scripting vulnerabilities arise when data is copied from a request and echoed into the application's immediate response in an unsafe way. An attacker can use the vulnerability to construct a request which, if issued by another application user, will cause JavaScript code supplied by the attacker to execute within the user's browser in the context of that user's session with the application.

The attacker-supplied code can perform a wide variety of actions, such as stealing the victim's session token or login credentials, performing arbitrary actions on the victim's behalf, and logging their keystrokes.

Users can be induced to issue the attacker's crafted request in various ways. For example, the attacker can send a victim a link containing a malicious URL in an email or instant message. They can submit the link to popular web sites that allow content authoring, for example in blog comments. And they can create an innocuous looking web site which causes anyone viewing it to make arbitrary cross-domain requests to the vulnerable application (using either the GET or the POST method).

The security impact of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities is dependent upon the nature of the vulnerable application, the kinds of data and functionality which it contains, and the other applications which belong to the same domain and organisation. If the application is used only to display non-sensitive public content, with no authentication or access control functionality, then a cross-site scripting flaw may be considered low risk. However, if the same application resides on a domain which can access cookies for other more security-critical applications, then the vulnerability could be used to attack those other applications, and so may be considered high risk. Similarly, if the organisation which owns the application is a likely target for phishing attacks, then the vulnerability could be leveraged to lend credibility to such attacks, by injecting Trojan functionality into the vulnerable application, and exploiting users' trust in the organisation in order to capture credentials for other applications which it owns. In many kinds of application, such as those providing online banking functionality, cross-site scripting should always be considered high risk.

Issue remediation

In most situations where user-controllable data is copied into application responses, cross-site scripting attacks can be prevented using two layers of defences:

Input should be validated as strictly as possible on arrival, given the kind of content which it is expected to contain. For example, personal names should consist of alphabetical and a small range of typographical characters, and be relatively short; a year of birth should consist of exactly four numerals; email addresses should match a well-defined regular expression. Input which fails the validation should be rejected, not sanitised.
User input should be HTML-encoded at any point where it is copied into application responses. All HTML metacharacters, including < > " ' and =, should be replaced with the corresponding HTML entities (< > etc).

In cases where the application's functionality allows users to author content using a restricted subset of HTML tags and attributes (for example, blog comments which allow limited formatting and linking), it is necessary to parse the supplied HTML to validate that it does not use any dangerous syntax; this is a non-trivial task.

Request

GET /Sales/orderServer/18/1560/?data%5BOrder%5D%5Blocation_server%5D=WASHINGTON_DC_1560&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bmanaged_resource%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bevault_plugin%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bos%5D%5Bid%5D=1866&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bram%5D%5Bid%5D=156&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bdisk_controller%5D%5Bid%5D=876&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bproperties%5D%5B0%5D%5Bname%5D=raidInstructions&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bproperties%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5BprimaryDiskPartition%5D=1&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bdisk0%5D%5Bid%5D=19&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bdisk1%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bdisk2%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bdisk3%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bbandwidth%5D%5Bid%5D=126&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bport_speed%5D%5Bid%5D=272&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bremote_management%5D%5Bid%5D=906&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bpri_ip_addresses%5D%5Bid%5D=21&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bsec_ip_addresses%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bstatic_ipv6_addresses%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Blockbox%5D%5Bid%5D=51&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bnas%5D%5Bquantity%5D=1&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bnas%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Biscsi%5D%5Bquantity%5D=1&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Biscsi%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bevault%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bos_addon%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bquantity%5D=1&sbutt=Continue+on+to+software+and+services+configuration&data%5BOrder%5D%5BstepId%5D=1&data%5BOrder%5D%5BpackageId%5D=18&data%5BOrder%5D%5BsessionId%5D=225244afe267be1e591e7a289e5aff7125fdf"><script>alert(1)</script>089c50e3145b5f6b4 HTTP/1.1
Host: outlet.softlayer.com
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: https://outlet.softlayer.com/Sales/orderServer/18/1560
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Origin: https://outlet.softlayer.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/10.0.648.205 Safari/534.16
Accept: application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
Cookie: __utmz=1.1303331808.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); __qca=P0-1166081025-1303331928691; _mkto_trk=id:220-ESA-932&token:_mch-softlayer.com-1303331754590-13937; __utma=1.143810723.1303331808.1303331808.1303834754.2; __utmc=1; __utmb=1.1.10.1303834754

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:21:59 GMT
Server: Apache
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Expires: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:21:59 GMT
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 61807

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Conten
...[SNIP]...
<input type="hidden" id="order_sessionid" name="data[Order][sessionId]" value="225244afe267be1e591e7a289e5aff7125fdf"><script>alert(1)</script>089c50e3145b5f6b4" forceValue="true" />
...[SNIP]...

2. Cacheable HTTPS response previous next
There are 3 instances of this issue:

/Sales/orderServer/18/1560
/Sales/orderServer/18/1560/
/favicon.ico

Issue description

Unless directed otherwise, browsers may store a local cached copy of content received from web servers. Some browsers, including Internet Explorer, cache content accessed via HTTPS. If sensitive information in application responses is stored in the local cache, then this may be retrieved by other users who have access to the same computer at a future time.

Issue remediation

The application should return caching directives instructing browsers not to store local copies of any sensitive data. Often, this can be achieved by configuring the web server to prevent caching for relevant paths within the web root. Alternatively, most web development platforms allow you to control the server's caching directives from within individual scripts. Ideally, the web server should return the following HTTP headers in all responses containing sensitive content:

Cache-control: no-store
Pragma: no-cache

2.1. https://outlet.softlayer.com/Sales/orderServer/18/1560 next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	https://outlet.softlayer.com
Path:	/Sales/orderServer/18/1560

Request

GET /Sales/orderServer/18/1560 HTTP/1.1
Host: outlet.softlayer.com
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://outlet.softlayer.com/
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/10.0.648.205 Safari/534.16
Accept: application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
Cookie: __utmz=1.1303331808.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); __qca=P0-1166081025-1303331928691; _mkto_trk=id:220-ESA-932&token:_mch-softlayer.com-1303331754590-13937; __utma=1.143810723.1303331808.1303331808.1303834754.2; __utmc=1; __utmb=1.1.10.1303834754

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:19:24 GMT
Server: Apache
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Expires: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:19:24 GMT
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 131315

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Conten
...[SNIP]...

2.2. https://outlet.softlayer.com/Sales/orderServer/18/1560/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	https://outlet.softlayer.com
Path:	/Sales/orderServer/18/1560/

Request

POST /Sales/orderServer/18/1560/ HTTP/1.1
Host: outlet.softlayer.com
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: https://outlet.softlayer.com/Sales/orderServer/18/1560
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Origin: https://outlet.softlayer.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/10.0.648.205 Safari/534.16
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Accept: application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
Cookie: __utmz=1.1303331808.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); __qca=P0-1166081025-1303331928691; _mkto_trk=id:220-ESA-932&token:_mch-softlayer.com-1303331754590-13937; __utma=1.143810723.1303331808.1303331808.1303834754.2; __utmc=1; __utmb=1.1.10.1303834754
Content-Length: 1613

data%5BOrder%5D%5Blocation_server%5D=WASHINGTON_DC_1560&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bmanaged_resource%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5Bevault_plugin%5D%5Bid%5D=&data%5BOrder%5D%5Bprices%5D%5
...[SNIP]...

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:19:49 GMT
Server: Apache
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Expires: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:19:49 GMT
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 61758

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Conten
...[SNIP]...

2.3. https://outlet.softlayer.com/favicon.ico previous

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	https://outlet.softlayer.com
Path:	/favicon.ico

Request

GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1
Host: outlet.softlayer.com
Connection: keep-alive
Accept: */*
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/10.0.648.205 Safari/534.16
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
Cookie: __utmz=1.1303331808.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); __qca=P0-1166081025-1303331928691; _mkto_trk=id:220-ESA-932&token:_mch-softlayer.com-1303331754590-13937; __utma=1.143810723.1303331808.1303331808.1303834754.2; __utmc=1; __utmb=1.9.10.1303834754

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:23:47 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:03:38 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Length: 3638

..............h...&... ..............(....... ...........@...................................558............. .......0/3.............325.........................326...................................
...[SNIP]...

3. Content type incorrectly stated previous

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Firm
Host:	https://outlet.softlayer.com
Path:	/favicon.ico

Issue detail

The response contains the following Content-type statement:

Content-Type: text/plain

The response states that it contains plain text. However, it actually appears to contain unrecognised content.

Issue background

If a web response specifies an incorrect content type, then browsers may process the response in unexpected ways. If the specified content type is a renderable text-based format, then the browser will usually attempt to parse and render the response in that format. If the specified type is an image format, then the browser will usually detect the anomaly and will analyse the actual content and attempt to determine its MIME type. Either case can lead to unexpected results, and if the content contains any user-controllable data may lead to cross-site scripting or other client-side vulnerabilities.

In most cases, the presence of an incorrect content type statement does not constitute a security flaw, particularly if the response contains static content. You should review the contents of the response and the context in which it appears to determine whether any vulnerability exists.

Issue remediation

For every response containing a message body, the application should include a single Content-type header which correctly and unambiguously states the MIME type of the content in the response body.

Request

Response

Report generated by XSS.CX at Tue Apr 26 12:33:36 CDT 2011.