An adversary identifies a Rest HTTP (Get, Put, Delete) style permission method allowing them to perform various malicious actions upon server data due to lack of access control mechanisms implemented within the application service accepting HTTP messages.
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Rest uses standard HTTP (Get, Put, Delete) style permissions methods, but these are not necessarily correlated generally with back end programs. Strict interpretation of HTTP get methods means that these HTTP Get services should not be used to delete information on the server, but there is no access control mechanism to back up this logic. This means that unless the services are properly ACL'd and the application's service implementation are following these guidelines then an HTTP request can easily execute a delete or update on the server side. The attacker identifies a HTTP Get URL such as http://victimsite/updateOrder, which calls out to a program to update orders on a database or other resource. The URL is not idempotent so the request can be submitted multiple times by the attacker, additionally, the attacker may be able to exploit the URL published as a Get method that actually performs updates (instead of merely retrieving data). This may result in malicious or inadvertent altering of data on the server.
What a successful CAPEC-58 attack can achieve.
Modify Data
Affects: Integrity
Gain Privileges
Affects: Confidentiality, Access Control, Authorization
Defenses that reduce the risk of CAPEC-58.
The HTTP Get method is designed to retrieve resources and not to alter the state of the application or resources on the server side. However, developers can easily code programs that accept a HTTP Get request that do in fact create, update or delete data on the server. Both Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/services/api/flickr.photosets.delete.html) and del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/api/posts/delete) have implemented delete operations using standard HTTP Get requests. These HTTP Get methods do delete data on the server side, despite being called from Get which is not supposed to alter state.
Common questions about CAPEC-58.
An adversary identifies a Rest HTTP (Get, Put, Delete) style permission method allowing them to perform various malicious actions upon server data due to lack of access control mechanisms implemented within the application service accepting HTTP messages.
Design: Enforce principle of least privilege
CAPEC-58 exploits 2 CWE weaknesses, including CWE-267 (Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions), CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management).
MITRE rates CAPEC-58 as High severity with high likelihood of attack.
Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.
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