CAPEC-237: Escaping a Sandbox by Calling Code in Another Language

Description
The attacker may submit malicious code of another language to obtain access to privileges that were not intentionally exposed by the sandbox, thus escaping the sandbox. For instance, Java code cannot perform unsafe operations, such as modifying arbitrary memory locations, due to restrictions placed on it by the Byte code Verifier and the JVM. If allowed, Java code can call directly into native C code, which may perform unsafe operations, such as call system calls and modify arbitrary memory locations on their behalf. To provide isolation, Java does not grant untrusted code with unmediated access to native C code. Instead, the sandboxed code is typically allowed to call some subset of the pre-existing native code that is part of standard libraries.
Extended Description

Applications often need to transform data in and out of serialized data formats, such as XML and YAML, by using a data parser. It may be possible for an adversary to inject data that may have an adverse effect on the parser when it is being processed. By supplying oversized payloads in input vectors that will be processed by the parser, an adversary can cause the parser to consume more resources while processing, causing excessive memory consumption and CPU utilization, and potentially cause execution of arbitrary code. An adversary's goal is to leverage parser failure to their advantage. DoS is most closely associated with web services, SOAP, and Rest, because remote service requesters can post malicious data payloads to the service provider designed to exhaust the service provider's memory, CPU, and/or disk space. This attack exploits the loosely coupled nature of web services, where the service provider has little to no control over the service requester and any messages the service requester sends.

Severity :

Very High

Possibility :

Low

Type :

Detailed
Relationships with other CAPECs

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

Skills required

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

  • High The attacker must have a good knowledge of the platform specific mechanisms of signing and verifying code. Most code signing and verification schemes are based on use of cryptography, the attacker needs to have an understand of these cryptographic operations in good detail.
Taxonomy mappings

Mappings to ATT&CK, OWASP and other frameworks.

Resources required

None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.

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.

Visit http://capec.mitre.org/ for more details.