CAPEC-137: Parameter Injection

Description
An adversary manipulates the content of request parameters for the purpose of undermining the security of the target. Some parameter encodings use text characters as separators. For example, parameters in a HTTP GET message are encoded as name-value pairs separated by an ampersand (&). If an attacker can supply text strings that are used to fill in these parameters, then they can inject special characters used in the encoding scheme to add or modify parameters. For example, if user input is fed directly into an HTTP GET request and the user provides the value "myInput&new_param=myValue", then the input parameter is set to myInput, but a new parameter (new_param) is also added with a value of myValue. This can significantly change the meaning of the query that is processed by the server. Any encoding scheme where parameters are identified and separated by text characters is potentially vulnerable to this attack - the HTTP GET encoding used above is just one example.
Extended Description

Many applications allow users to send email messages by filling in fields. For example, a web site may have a link to "share this site with a friend" where the user provides the recipient's email address and the web application fills out all the other fields, such as the subject and body. In this pattern, an adversary adds header and body information to an email message by injecting additional content in an input field used to construct a header of the mail message. This attack takes advantage of the fact that RFC 822 requires that headers in a mail message be separated by a carriage return. As a result, an adversary can inject new headers or content simply by adding a delimiting carriage return and then supplying the new heading and body information. This attack will not work if the user can only supply the message body since a carriage return in the body is treated as a normal character.

Severity :

Medium

Possibility :

Medium

Type :

Meta
Relationships with other CAPECs

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

CAPEC-6: Argument Injection Argument Injection CAPEC-15: Command Delimiters Command Delimiters CAPEC-134: Email Injection Email Injection CAPEC-135: Format String Injection Format String Injection CAPEC-138: Reflection Injection Reflection Injection CAPEC-182: Flash Injection Flash Injection
Prerequisites

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

  • The target application must use a parameter encoding where separators and parameter identifiers are expressed in regular text.
  • The target application must accept a string as user input, fail to sanitize characters that have a special meaning in the parameter encoding, and insert the user-supplied string in an encoding which is then processed.
Skills required

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

Taxonomy mappings

Mappings to ATT&CK, OWASP and other frameworks.

Resources required

None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack. The only requirement is the ability to provide string input to the target.

Related CWE

A Related Weakness relationship associates a weakness with this attack pattern. Each association implies a weakness that must exist for a given attack to be successful.

CWE-88: Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection')

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