HTTP Header Injection, CRLF, 0x20, CWE-113, www.people.com

HTTP Header Injection in www.people.com | Vulnerability Crawler Report

Report generated by CloudScan Vulnerability Crawler at Tue Feb 08 13:13:27 CST 2011.

DORK CWE-79 XSS Report

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1. HTTP header injection

2. Flash cross-domain policy

3. Cross-domain script include

4. Robots.txt file


1. HTTP header injection  next

Summary

Severity:   High
Confidence:   Certain
Host:   http://www.people.com
Path:   /people/article/0,,20464356,00.html

Issue detail

The value of REST URL parameter 1 is copied into the Location response header. The payload 5197b%0d%0abebdf294213 was submitted in the REST URL parameter 1. This caused a response containing an injected HTTP header.

Issue background

HTTP header injection vulnerabilities arise when user-supplied data is copied into a response header in an unsafe way. If an attacker can inject newline characters into the header, then they can inject new HTTP headers and also, by injecting an empty line, break out of the headers into the message body and write arbitrary content into the application's response.

Various kinds of attack can be delivered via HTTP header injection vulnerabilities. Any attack that can be delivered via cross-site scripting can usually be delivered via header injection, because the attacker can construct a request which causes arbitrary JavaScript to appear within the response body. Further, it is sometimes possible to leverage header injection vulnerabilities to poison the cache of any proxy server via which users access the application. Here, an attacker sends a crafted request which results in a "split" response containing arbitrary content. If the proxy server can be manipulated to associate the injected response with another URL used within the application, then the attacker can perform a "stored" attack against this URL which will compromise other users who request that URL in future.

Issue remediation

If possible, applications should avoid copying user-controllable data into HTTP response headers. If this is unavoidable, then the data should be strictly validated to prevent header injection attacks. In most situations, it will be appropriate to allow only short alphanumeric strings to be copied into headers, and any other input should be rejected. At a minimum, input containing any characters with ASCII codes less than 0x20 should be rejected.

Request

GET /5197b%0d%0abebdf294213/article/0,,20464356,00.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.people.com
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
Connection: close

Response

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:41:05 GMT
Location: http://www.people.com/people/5197b
bebdf294213/article/0,,20464356,00.html
Content-Length: 347
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>301 Moved Permanently</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Moved Permanently</h1>
<p>The document has moved <a href="http://www.people.com/p
...[SNIP]...
2. Flash cross-domain policy  previous  next

Summary

Severity:   High
Confidence:   Certain
Host:   http://www.people.com
Path:   /crossdomain.xml

Issue detail

The application publishes a Flash cross-domain policy which allows access from any domain, uses a wildcard to specify allowed domains, and allows access from specific other domains.

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.

Using a wildcard to specify allowed domains means that any domain matching the wildcard expression can perform two-way interaction with this application. You should only use this policy if you fully trust every possible web site that may reside on a domain which matches the wildcard expression.

Allowing access from specific domains means that web sites on those domains can perform two-way interaction with this application. You should only use this policy if you fully trust the specific domains allowed by the policy.

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: www.people.com

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:41:04 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:23:49 GMT
ETag: "373-cdb58f40"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 883
Content-Type: application/xml
Vary: X-Catmap-Header
P3P: CP='PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA PRE CUR ADMa DEVa TAIo PSAo PSDo IVAo IVDo CONo TELo OTPi OUR UNRo PUBi OTRo IND DSP CAO COR'
Connection: close

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy
SYSTEM "http://www.macromedia.com/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd">

<cross-domain-policy>
<allow-access-from domain="*" secure="false"/>
<allow-access-from domain="img2.timeinc.net"/>
<allow-access-from domain="img2-short.timeinc.net"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.aol.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.digitalcity.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.aolcdn.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.channel.aol.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.aimtoday.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.aimtoday.aim.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.dashboard.aim.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.aim.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="peopleconnection.aol.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.peoplecmg.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.myspacecdn.com"/>
<allow-access-from domain="*.taaz.com" secure="true"/>
...[SNIP]...
3. Cross-domain script include  previous  next

Summary

Severity:   Information
Confidence:   Certain
Host:   http://www.people.com
Path:   /people/article/0,,20464356,00.html

Issue detail

The response dynamically includes the following scripts from other domains:

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.

Request

GET /people/article/0,,20464356,00.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.people.com
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
Connection: close

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:41:04 GMT
Server: Apache
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding,X-Catmap-Header,User-Agent,*
P3P: CP='PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA PRE CUR ADMa DEVa TAIo PSAo PSDo IVAo IVDo CONo TELo OTPi OUR UNRo PUBi OTRo IND DSP CAO COR'
Connection: close
Content-Length: 37603

<!--[if IE 5]> Vignette StoryServer 6.0 Tue Feb 08 13:34:29 2011 <![endif]-->
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

...[SNIP]...
<link rel="canonical" href="/people/article/0,,20464356,00.html" />
   <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://img.timeinc.net/shared/static/js/tii_ads.js"></script>
   <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://js.adsonar.com/js/tw_adsonar.js"></script>
   <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://img2-short.timeinc.net/people/static/j/main.js?7"></script>
   <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://img2-short.timeinc.net/people/static/j/news/main.js?7"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>
               <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://img.timeinc.net/tii/omniture/h/common.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://img.timeinc.net/tii/omniture/h/config/people.js"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>
                           <script type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script>
...[SNIP]...
<!-- revsci -->
           <script src="http://js.revsci.net/gateway/gw.js?csid=H07710" type="text/javascript"></script>
...[SNIP]...
</script>
           <script type="text/javascript" src="http://edge.quantserve.com/quant.js"></script>
...[SNIP]...
4. Robots.txt file  previous

Summary

Severity:   Information
Confidence:   Certain
Host:   http://www.people.com
Path:   /people/article/0,,20464356,00.html

Issue detail

The web server contains a robots.txt file.

Issue background

The file robots.txt is used to give instructions to web robots, such as search engine crawlers, about locations within the web site which robots are allowed, or not allowed, to crawl and index.

The presence of the robots.txt does not in itself present any kind of security vulnerability. However, it is often used to identify restricted or private areas of a site's contents. The information in the file may therefore help an attacker to map out the site's contents, especially if some of the locations identified are not linked from elsewhere in the site. If the application relies on robots.txt to protect access to these areas, and does not enforce proper access control over them, then this presents a serious vulnerability.

Issue remediation

The robots.txt file is not itself a security threat, and its correct use can represent good practice for non-security reasons. You should not assume that all web robots will honour the file's instructions. Rather, assume that attackers will pay close attention to any locations identified in the file. Do not rely on robots.txt to provide any kind of protection over unauthorised access.

Request

GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0
Host: www.people.com

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:41:04 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:16:18 GMT
ETag: "18a-c25a1480"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 394
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Vary: X-Catmap-Header
P3P: CP='PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA PRE CUR ADMa DEVa TAIo PSAo PSDo IVAo IVDo CONo TELo OTPi OUR UNRo PUBi OTRo IND DSP CAO COR', CP='PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA PRE CUR ADMa DEVa TAIo PSAo PSDo IVAo IVDo CONo TELo OTPi OUR UNRo PUBi OTRo IND DSP CAO COR'
Connection: close

# Welcome to Pathfinder's robots.txt
#
# If you have any questions about indexing our site,
# especially regarding more efficient or convenient
# methods, please write to:
#
#
...[SNIP]...
Report generated by CloudScan Vulnerability Crawler at Tue Feb 08 13:13:27 CST 2011.