full-disclosure - Re: Data Type Conversion Attack

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Message-ID: <3af3d47c0912210522w7123dd3anb903318157df61a2@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:22:51 +0100
From: Christian Sciberras <uuf6429@...il.com>
To: Manu <sourvivor@...il.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: Data Type Conversion Attack

Since I couldn't see any mention of a fix, here you go my tiny rant.

The example vulnerable code is faulty on multiple levels. One shouldn't rely
on automated typecasting, but explicitly mark which kind of typecasting.
The main priciple here is NOT typecasting, but "making bad code look bad".
Here, you go:

$vuln=(int)$_GET["var"]+1;

Or, if you prefer a more pro approach;

$vuln=intval($_GET["var"])+1;

Regards,
Christian Sciberras.


On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Manu <sourvivor@...il.com> wrote:

> *Introduction*
>
>
>
> This test allows attackers to discover local installation paths in websites
> using PHP in which the error messages hasn´t been completely blocked. The
> idea is to use the http parameters to perform an explicit data type
> conversion to generate a non-managed exception which shows the local
> installation path on the web server.
>
>
>
> *Local Path disclosure*
>
>
>
> Let´s suppose a PHP code running on a web server like following:
>
>
>
> *Dca.php*
>
> *<?php ***
>
> *$vuln= $_GET["var"] +1;***
>
> *?>***
>
>
>
> As can be seen, this program receives a numeric parameter which is used to
> perform a mathematical function. The normal way to call this program is
> something like:
>
>
>
> -       *http://www.testserver.com/dca.php?var=1<https://owa.informatica64.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=03bb620597674e25acf80fef5ea71825&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.testserver.com%2fdca.php%3fvar%3d1>
> *
>
>
>
> In order to force an implicit data type conversion the following syntax in
> the calling http parameters can be used:
>
>
>
> -       *http://www.testserver.com/dca.php?var[]=1<https://owa.informatica64.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=03bb620597674e25acf80fef5ea71825&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.testserver.com%2fdca.php%3fvar%255b%255d%3d1>
> *
>
>
>
> This syntax will force the PHP engine to convert the parameter into an
> array structure. If the *display_errors* parameter in the *php.ini*configuration file is enabled then an error message like the following will
> be showed up:
>
>
>
> *Unsupported operand types in C:\server\htdocs\dca\dca.php on line 2*
>
>
>
> This behavior is due to the fact that there are not an implicit transform
> for adding operation in array structures. In my personal research I found
> out that there are a lot of PHP functions which usually applied to http
> parameters that causes the same behavior dumping the error messages as shown
> giving to the attacker more information that strictly necessary.
>
>
>
> Manuel Fernández
>
> Security Consultor
>
> Informática64
>
> _______________________________________________
> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
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_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
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