Scribd
Upload
193 views37 pages

Isc 08 Web Security

This document summarizes key aspects of web security, including HTTP security with cookies and HTTPS, server-side security issues like injection attacks, and client-side security risks from cross-site scripting and tracking. It covers security mechanisms for HTTP like sessions, defenses against injection, and vulnerabilities in common frameworks. Browser privacy concerns from tracking are also outlined.

Uploaded by

Andreea Carmen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
193 views37 pages

Isc 08 Web Security

This document summarizes key aspects of web security, including HTTP security with cookies and HTTPS, server-side security issues like injection attacks, and client-side security risks from cross-site scripting and tracking. It covers security mechanisms for HTTP like sessions, defenses against injection, and vulnerabilities in common frameworks. Browser privacy concerns from tracking are also outlined.

Uploaded by

Andreea Carmen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 37

Web Security

Today: Florin Stancu


Asst. Prof. Mihai Chiroiu
Contents
• HTTP Security
• Cookies, Sessions
• HTTPS
• Server-side Security
• Injection
• Session Hijacking
• Client-side / Browser Security

© Mihai Chiroiu
HTTP Protocol [1]
• Stateless, text-based request-response protocol
Client -> Server: Server -> Client:
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
GET /index.html HTTP/1.0
Header1: value1
Header1: value1
Header2: value2
Header2: value2

<html><head>...</head>
<optional body>
<body>...</body></html>

© Mihai Chiroiu
HTTP Methods
 GET: fetch a resource, may have query strings:
http://domain.com/browse.php?list=users&name=john
Generates:
GET /browse.php?list=users&name=john HTTP/1.0
 PUT / POST: create or edit a resource (only POST is widely used)
• DELETE: delete resources (not used in practice)
• HEAD: like GET, but server responds with the headers only
• OPTIONS: determine options for a resource
• GET, HEAD and OPTIONS should be idempotent

© Mihai Chiroiu
HTTP Methods & HTML Forms
• Links typically use a GET request for opening pages
• HTML forms can generate GET and POST requests:
<form action="/login.php?user_type=regular" method="post">
User: <input type="text" name="username">
Password: <input type="password" name="pass">
</form>
Generates:
POST /login.php?user_type=regular HTTP/1.0
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 30 <-- the length of the body

username=<username>&pass=<user’s password>

© Mihai Chiroiu
Cookies
• Small piece of data that the browser stores and sends back to the
server on future requests
• Can be used to remember user preferences, server sessions etc.

Response header example: Request example:

HTTP/1.0 200 OK GET / HTTP/1.1


Set-Cookie: c1=val1 Cookie: cook1=val1;cook2=val2
Set-Cookie: c2=val2

© Mihai Chiroiu
Cookie Security
• Cookies are insecure:
• The user can freely read & modify them
• They can be intercepted unless HTTPS is used for transport
• Must add confidentiality and integrity guarantees:
• Using cryptography: encryption & HMAC [2]
• Server-side sessions
• Privacy implications:
• Cookies can be used to track users (e.g. by analytics & ad servers)

© Mihai Chiroiu
Server Sessions
• Also known as server-side cookies
• Server generates a random, unique session ID
4125a859778b1bf9b9b778a236f01e01
• Server uses database to store secrets associated with a session ID
• Persisted as cookie / passed using GET / POST parameters
Cookie: PHPSESSID=4125a85...
or
show.php?phpsessid=4125a85...

© Mihai Chiroiu
HTTPS [3]
• Based on Secure Sockets Layer / Transport Layer Security
• Creates a private channel between the client and the server
• The server authenticates itself using certificates and PKI
• Diffie-Hellman for forward secrecy
• Cipher negotiation: RC4, DES, AES CBC, AES GCM etc.
• Target of numerous attacks

© Mihai Chiroiu
TLS / HTTPS Attacks [4]
• Compression attacks (CRIME, BREACH)
• RC4 weaknesses
• Man-in-the-middle (Malicious Certificates, SSL stripping)
• Downgrade attacks (FREAK, Logjam, POODLE)
• Implementation bugs (e.g. Heartbeat, Cloudflare)

© Mihai Chiroiu
Server-side Processing
• Server generates dynamic content
• Scripting interfaces: CGI (legacy) / FastCGI / apache2 modules [5]

© Mihai Chiroiu
Sample Directory Layout
/var/www
|-- index.html
|-- login.php
|-- css/style.css
|-- images/
|-- logo.png
|-- map.png
Example requests:
> GET /index.html HTTP/1.0
> GET /images/logo.png HTTP/1.0
> POST /login.php HTTP/1.0

© Mihai Chiroiu
Server-side Processing
• Example (PHP)
<?php
$name = $_GET["name"];
$curDate = date("l");
?>
<p>Hello, <i><?=$name?></i>.
The date is <b><?=$curDate?></b>
<?php
echo $message;
?>

© Mihai Chiroiu
Server-side Injection (1)
SQL Injection [6]
$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE user='" .
$_POST["user"] . "' AND password='" .
hash($_POST["password"]) . "'";
$result = mysql_query($conn, $query);

POST: email=admin’--
• => SELECT * FROM users WHERE
 user='admin'-- AND password=''`

© Mihai Chiroiu
Server-side Injection (2)
• File upload attack
• Example:
 A site allows image submissions with minimal verification

 The user uploads image.gif.php with malicious code

 User finds out the path to the image and requests it:

 GET /uploads/image_9876.gif.php

 Server executes our script (if badly configured ;) )

© Mihai Chiroiu
Server-side Injection (3)
• Preventing injection:
 Do not trust tutorials [7]

 Always sanitize user input!

 Try not to use shell execution / script evaluation

 For SQL, use prepared statements:

$stmt = $mysqli->prepare("INSERT INTO table


(name) VALUES (?)");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $id); // "s" for string
$stmt->execute();

© Mihai Chiroiu
Application-Specific Vectors
• Broken Authentication System [8]
 Predictable / insecure session IDs

 Unencrypted passwords [9]

• Authorization Vulnerabilities
 Improper access verification

 Example: /delete_user.php?id=5368

 Direct object reference: /admin/list_users.php

• Vulnerable Frameworks / Plugins (e.g. many Wordpress plugins)

© Mihai Chiroiu
Server Misconfiguration [9]
• Again: do not trust tutorials
 Nginx & PHP FastCGI configuration vulnerability [10]

• Exposed files (e.g. password files, backups) / directory listings


• Bad permissions
• Debugging enabled in production
• System software vulnerabilities:
 E.g. ShellShock (BASH vulnerability) [11]

© Mihai Chiroiu
Pwned Websites
• Haveibeenpwned.com – check it home!
• Yahoo! (2012 – SQL Injection, 2013, 2014 –
forged cookies)
 1 bilion accounts exposed!

• LinkedIn (hacked 2012, exposed in 2016)


• Adobe (2013): broken encryption =))
• Dropbox (2012):
 SHA1 and salted passwords ;)

© Mihai Chiroiu
Client-side Security
 Client-side Scripting (JavaScript)
 Isolated execution, resource policies

 AJAX

 Websites affecting client-side security:

 Cross-site scripting (XSS)

 Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)

 Tracking & Advertisements

 Browser vulnerabilities

 Legacy plugins: ActiveX, Java, Flash

© Mihai Chiroiu
JavaScript
 The most popular ECMAScript implementation [12]
 Used for webpage scripting (dynamic content, animations)

 Document Object Model

 It can also be used for server scripting (NodeJS)

 Sandboxed execution (e.g. cannot: read user’s files, run external

programs)
 Modern web applications rendered entirely in JavaScript

 Angular, React, Polymer etc.

© Mihai Chiroiu
AJAX [13]
 Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
 XMLHttpRequest - API for issuing background HTTP requests

 Used to build modern, responsive applications

 XHR re-sends cookies for the requested domain!

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();


xhr.open('get', 'ajax.php');
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {/*...*/};
xhr.send(null);

© Mihai Chiroiu
Same / Cross Origin Policies [14]
 Same Origin = Same protocol + domain + port
 Example: http://domain.com vs https://www.domain.com
 Used to prevent cross-domain data stealing
 For example, a user enters malicious.com
 Malicious.com makes a request for facebook.com
 The request is made, but the response is discarded
 Does not prevent information leakage!
 CORS – Cross-Origin Resource Sharing

© Mihai Chiroiu
CORS
 CORS – Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
 The target server sends special response headers:

 Access-Control-Allow-Origin: http://domain.com (for HTTPS)


 Origin: http://domain.com (for HTTP)
 If the requester’s domain matches this ACL, the browser accepts it
 Otherwise, the XHR will receive an error and the response text will be

discarded

© Mihai Chiroiu
XSS [15]
 Cross-Site Scripting / client-side code injection
 E.g.: a messaging board website that allows HTML rich text:

 Someone posts:
I just wanted to say hello!
<script>pwnThisSucker();</script>
If the target website doesn’t filter this, the code will execute on any

visitor’s browser
 Code can steal data, infect the victims using a browser exploit etc.

© Mihai Chiroiu
XSS Prevention
 Escape HTML before rendering
 Convert "<" to "&lt;", ">" to "&gt;", quotes to "&quot;" etc.

 Use a template engine that does this

 If rich text is required, use a whitelist-based HTML processor to

sanitize
 Example: strip out dangerous tags like script, embed, iframe etc.

 WARNING: Dont do this unless you know what you’re doing!

 Use a library designed to do this (e.g. htmlpurifier.org)

© Mihai Chiroiu
CSRF [16]
 Cross-Site Request Forgery
 A malicious website tricks the browser / user into accessing a cross-

origin URL
 Example (on malicious.com):

 <img src="https://www.facebook.com/post/?msg=PWNED!"/>
 Defenses:
 Don’t execute critical actions on GET requests!

 Use CSRF tokens

 Check headers (Referer, X-Requested-With etc.)

© Mihai Chiroiu
Browser Privacy [17]
 Websites can track the user across multiple domains!
 Cookies

 Invisible objects or scripts that do remote requests

 e.g.: Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Facebook etc.

 Browser Fingerprinting [19]

 Test yourselves using EFF’s Panopticlick [18]

 Tracking servers can become attack vectors!

 Extensions that block such requests [20]

© Mihai Chiroiu
Browser Vulnerabilities
 Browsers are a complex piece of software
 May have vulnerabilities that allow attackers to escape sandboxing

 Attack vectors:

 Malicious websites

 Code injection on trusted websites (e.g. XSS)

 Browser plugins: Flash, Java, ActiveX etc.

© Mihai Chiroiu
Browser Vulnerabilities (2)
 2015: Adobe Flash had 96
vulnerabilities [21]!
 2016:

 Flash most featured in exploit kits!


 Internet Explorer second place [22]
 Exploit kits:
 Angler, RIG, Nuclear etc.

© Mihai Chiroiu
Browser Vulnerabilities (3)
 Pwn2Own: security competition for hacking browsers
 2016 results [23]:

 5 bugs in the Windows operating system


 4 bugs in Internet Explorer 11
 3 bugs in Mozilla Firefox
 3 bugs in Adobe Reader
 3 bugs in Adobe Flash
 2 bugs in Apple Safari
 1 bug in Google Chrome

© Mihai Chiroiu
Secure Browsers
 If you want a secure browser:
 Don’t use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer!

 Block all plugins by default

 Always use the latest version of a browser

 Modern browsers employ multi-process sandboxing

 One process per tab with no access to the user’s system

 Coordinate with a main browser process

 Chromium even uses LXC namespaces on Linux! [24]

© Mihai Chiroiu
OWASP [25]
 The Open Web Application Security Project
 OWASP Top 10 for 2017 (preview [26]):

1.Code Injection 6.Sensitive Data Exposure


2.Broken Authentication and Session 7.Insufficient Attack Protection
Management 8.Cross-site Request Forgery
3.Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) 9.Using components with known
4.Broken Access Control vulnerabilities
5.Security Misconfiguration 10.Underprotected APIs

© Mihai Chiroiu
References
[1] HTTP https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616
[2] Murdoch, Steven J. "Hardened stateless session cookies." International
Workshop on Security Protocols. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008.
[3] TLS protocol version 1.2, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5246 (2008)
[4] TLS attacks, https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/pdfrfc/rfc7457.txt.pdf
[5] Common Gateway Interface, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3875
[6] Clarke-Salt, Justin. SQL injection attacks and defense. Elsevier, 2009.
[6] Flawed Tutorials, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.02786.pdf
[7] Session Fixation: http://www.acros.si/papers/session_fixation.pdf

© Mihai Bucicoiu
References (2)
[8] https://fishbowl.pastiche.org/archives/docs/PasswordRecovery.pdf
[9] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,11525,00.asp
[10] Common Nginx + PHP Misconfiguration http://bit.ly/1kAK8xu
[11] ShellShock, http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/70103
[12] ECMA-262, http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm
[13] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest
[14] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Same-origin_policy
[15] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dross/2009/12/15/happy-10th-birthday-
cross-site-scripting/

© Mihai Bucicoiu
References (3)
[16] https://www.nccgroup.trust/globalassets/our-
research/us/whitepapers/csrf_paper.pdf
[17] http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6234427
[18] https://panopticlick.eff.org/
[19] How unique is your browser?
https://kabijo.de/files/13/14/5641571611600.pdf
[20] http://lifehacker.com/the-best-browser-extensions-that-protect-your-privacy-
479408034
[21] https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/adobe-flash-vulnerabilities-security-risks/

© Mihai Bucicoiu
References (4)
[22] https://www.recordedfuture.com/top-vulnerabilities-2016/
[23] https://venturebeat.com/2016/03/18/pwn2own-2016-chrome-edge-and-
safari-hacked-460k-awarded-in-total/
[24]
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/linux_sandboxi
ng.md
[25] https://www.owasp.org/
[26]
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OWASP/Top10/master/2017/OWASP%20Top%
2010%20-%202017%20RC1-English.pdf

© Mihai Bucicoiu

You might also like