CAPEC-664: Server Side Request Forgery

Description
<p>An adversary exploits improper input validation by submitting maliciously crafted input to a target application running on a server, with the goal of forcing the server to make a request either to itself, to web services running in the server’s internal network, or to external third parties. If successful, the adversary’s request will be made with the server’s privilege level, bypassing its authentication controls. This ultimately allows the adversary to access sensitive data, execute commands on the server’s network, and make external requests with the stolen identity of the server. Server Side Request Forgery attacks differ from Cross Site Request Forgery attacks in that they target the server itself, whereas CSRF attacks exploit an insecure user authentication mechanism to perform unauthorized actions on the user's behalf.<p>
Extended Description

This attack first requires the adversary to trick the victim into installing a Trojan Horse application on their system, such as a malicious web browser plugin, which the adversary then leverages to mount the attack. The victim interacts with a web application, such as a banking website, in a normal manner and under the assumption that the connection is secure. However, the adversary can now alter and/or reroute traffic between the client application (e.g., web browser) and the coinciding endpoint, while simultaneously displaying intended transactions and data back to the user. The adversary may also be able to glean cookies, HTTP sessions, and SSL client certificates, which can be used to pivot into an authenticated intranet. Identifying AITB is often difficult because these attacks are successful even when security mechanisms such as SSL/PKI and multifactor authentication are present, since they still function as intended during the attack.

Severity :

High

Possibility :

High

Type :

Standard
Prerequisites

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

  • Server must be running a web application that processes HTTP requests.
Skills required

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

  • Medium The adversary will have to detect the vulnerability through an intermediary service or specify maliciously crafted URLs and analyze the server response.
  • High The adversary will be required to access internal resources, extract information, or leverage the services running on the server to perform unauthorized actions such as traversing the local network or routing a reflected TCP DDoS through them.
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.