Find, fix and prevent vulnerabilities in your code.
high severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9Remediation: Upgrade to angular@1.8.0.
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS). XSS may be triggered in AngularJS applications that sanitize user-controlled HTML snippets before passing them to JQLite
methods like JQLite.prepend
, JQLite.after
, JQLite.append
, JQLite.replaceWith
, JQLite.append
, new JQLite
and angular.element
.
JQLite (DOM manipulation library that's part of AngularJS) manipulates input HTML before inserting it to the DOM in jqLiteBuildFragment
.
One of the modifications performed expands an XHTML self-closing tag.
If jqLiteBuildFragment
is called (e.g. via new JQLite(aString)
) with user-controlled HTML string that was sanitized (e.g. with DOMPurify), the transformation done by JQLite may modify some forms of an inert, sanitized payload into a payload containing JavaScript - and trigger an XSS when the payload is inserted into DOM.
PoC
const inertPayload = `<div><style><style/><img src=x onerror="alert(1337)"/>`
Note that the style element is not closed and <img
would be a text node inside the style if inserted into the DOM as-is.
As such, some HTML sanitizers would leave the <img
as is without processing it and stripping the onerror
attribute.
angular.element(document).append(inertPayload);
This will alert, as <style/>
will be replaced with <style></style>
before adding it to the DOM, closing the style element early and reactivating img
.
Details
A cross-site scripting attack occurs when the attacker tricks a legitimate web-based application or site to accept a request as originating from a trusted source.
This is done by escaping the context of the web application; the web application then delivers that data to its users along with other trusted dynamic content, without validating it. The browser unknowingly executes malicious script on the client side (through client-side languages; usually JavaScript or HTML) in order to perform actions that are otherwise typically blocked by the browser’s Same Origin Policy.
Injecting malicious code is the most prevalent manner by which XSS is exploited; for this reason, escaping characters in order to prevent this manipulation is the top method for securing code against this vulnerability.
Escaping means that the application is coded to mark key characters, and particularly key characters included in user input, to prevent those characters from being interpreted in a dangerous context. For example, in HTML, <
can be coded as <
; and >
can be coded as >
; in order to be interpreted and displayed as themselves in text, while within the code itself, they are used for HTML tags. If malicious content is injected into an application that escapes special characters and that malicious content uses <
and >
as HTML tags, those characters are nonetheless not interpreted as HTML tags by the browser if they’ve been correctly escaped in the application code and in this way the attempted attack is diverted.
The most prominent use of XSS is to steal cookies (source: OWASP HttpOnly) and hijack user sessions, but XSS exploits have been used to expose sensitive information, enable access to privileged services and functionality and deliver malware.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which XSS can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Description |
---|---|---|
Stored | Server | The malicious code is inserted in the application (usually as a link) by the attacker. The code is activated every time a user clicks the link. |
Reflected | Server | The attacker delivers a malicious link externally from the vulnerable web site application to a user. When clicked, malicious code is sent to the vulnerable web site, which reflects the attack back to the user’s browser. |
DOM-based | Client | The attacker forces the user’s browser to render a malicious page. The data in the page itself delivers the cross-site scripting data. |
Mutated | The attacker injects code that appears safe, but is then rewritten and modified by the browser, while parsing the markup. An example is rebalancing unclosed quotation marks or even adding quotation marks to unquoted parameters. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to an XSS attack:
- Web servers
- Application servers
- Web application environments
How to prevent
This section describes the top best practices designed to specifically protect your code:
- Sanitize data input in an HTTP request before reflecting it back, ensuring all data is validated, filtered or escaped before echoing anything back to the user, such as the values of query parameters during searches.
- Convert special characters such as
?
,&
,/
,<
,>
and spaces to their respective HTML or URL encoded equivalents. - Give users the option to disable client-side scripts.
- Redirect invalid requests.
- Detect simultaneous logins, including those from two separate IP addresses, and invalidate those sessions.
- Use and enforce a Content Security Policy (source: Wikipedia) to disable any features that might be manipulated for an XSS attack.
- Read the documentation for any of the libraries referenced in your code to understand which elements allow for embedded HTML.
Remediation
Upgrade angular
to version 1.8.0 or higher.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: lodash
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › lodash@4.17.11Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.0.3.
Overview
lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance, & extras.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution. The function zipObjectDeep
can be tricked into adding or modifying properties of the Object prototype. These properties will be present on all objects.
PoC
const _ = require('lodash');
_.zipObjectDeep(['__proto__.z'],[123]);
console.log(z); // 123
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade lodash
to version 4.17.20 or higher.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS). A regular expression used to split the value of the ng-srcset
directive is vulnerable to super-linear runtime due to backtracking. With large carefully-crafted input, this can result in catastrophic backtracking and cause a denial of service.
Note:
This package is EOL and will not receive any updates to address this issue. Users should migrate to @angular/core.
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its original and legitimate users. There are many types of DoS attacks, ranging from trying to clog the network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines (a Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS - attack) to sending crafted requests that cause a system to crash or take a disproportional amount of time to process.
The Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) is a type of Denial of Service attack. Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but they aren't very intuitive and can ultimately end up making it easy for attackers to take your site down.
Let’s take the following regular expression as an example:
regex = /A(B|C+)+D/
This regular expression accomplishes the following:
A
The string must start with the letter 'A'(B|C+)+
The string must then follow the letter A with either the letter 'B' or some number of occurrences of the letter 'C' (the+
matches one or more times). The+
at the end of this section states that we can look for one or more matches of this section.D
Finally, we ensure this section of the string ends with a 'D'
The expression would match inputs such as ABBD
, ABCCCCD
, ABCBCCCD
and ACCCCCD
It most cases, it doesn't take very long for a regex engine to find a match:
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCD")'
0.04s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.052 total
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCX")'
1.79s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.812 total
The entire process of testing it against a 30 characters long string takes around ~52ms. But when given an invalid string, it takes nearly two seconds to complete the test, over ten times as long as it took to test a valid string. The dramatic difference is due to the way regular expressions get evaluated.
Most Regex engines will work very similarly (with minor differences). The engine will match the first possible way to accept the current character and proceed to the next one. If it then fails to match the next one, it will backtrack and see if there was another way to digest the previous character. If it goes too far down the rabbit hole only to find out the string doesn’t match in the end, and if many characters have multiple valid regex paths, the number of backtracking steps can become very large, resulting in what is known as catastrophic backtracking.
Let's look at how our expression runs into this problem, using a shorter string: "ACCCX". While it seems fairly straightforward, there are still four different ways that the engine could match those three C's:
- CCC
- CC+C
- C+CC
- C+C+C.
The engine has to try each of those combinations to see if any of them potentially match against the expression. When you combine that with the other steps the engine must take, we can use RegEx 101 debugger to see the engine has to take a total of 38 steps before it can determine the string doesn't match.
From there, the number of steps the engine must use to validate a string just continues to grow.
String | Number of C's | Number of steps |
---|---|---|
ACCCX | 3 | 38 |
ACCCCX | 4 | 71 |
ACCCCCX | 5 | 136 |
ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCX | 14 | 65,553 |
By the time the string includes 14 C's, the engine has to take over 65,000 steps just to see if the string is valid. These extreme situations can cause them to work very slowly (exponentially related to input size, as shown above), allowing an attacker to exploit this and can cause the service to excessively consume CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: lodash
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › lodash@4.17.11Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.0.3.
Overview
lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance, & extras.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution through the zipObjectDeep
function due to improper user input sanitization in the baseZipObject
function.
PoC
lodash.zipobjectdeep:
const zipObjectDeep = require("lodash.zipobjectdeep");
let emptyObject = {};
console.log(`[+] Before prototype pollution : ${emptyObject.polluted}`);
//[+] Before prototype pollution : undefined
zipObjectDeep(["constructor.prototype.polluted"], [true]);
//we inject our malicious attributes in the vulnerable function
console.log(`[+] After prototype pollution : ${emptyObject.polluted}`);
//[+] After prototype pollution : true
lodash:
const test = require("lodash");
let emptyObject = {};
console.log(`[+] Before prototype pollution : ${emptyObject.polluted}`);
//[+] Before prototype pollution : undefined
test.zipObjectDeep(["constructor.prototype.polluted"], [true]);
//we inject our malicious attributes in the vulnerable function
console.log(`[+] After prototype pollution : ${emptyObject.polluted}`);
//[+] After prototype pollution : true
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade lodash
to version 4.17.17 or higher.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: toastr
- Introduced through: toastr@2.1.2
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › toastr@2.1.2
Overview
toastr is a Javascript library for non-blocking notifications. jQuery is required. The goal is to create a simple core library that can be customized and extended
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS) due to the missing sanitization of message and title which are not regarded as plain text by default.
Note: The fix is not by default. As the documentation of the package mentions it; In case you want to escape HTML
characters in title and message set toastr.options.escapeHtml = true
.
Details
A cross-site scripting attack occurs when the attacker tricks a legitimate web-based application or site to accept a request as originating from a trusted source.
This is done by escaping the context of the web application; the web application then delivers that data to its users along with other trusted dynamic content, without validating it. The browser unknowingly executes malicious script on the client side (through client-side languages; usually JavaScript or HTML) in order to perform actions that are otherwise typically blocked by the browser’s Same Origin Policy.
Injecting malicious code is the most prevalent manner by which XSS is exploited; for this reason, escaping characters in order to prevent this manipulation is the top method for securing code against this vulnerability.
Escaping means that the application is coded to mark key characters, and particularly key characters included in user input, to prevent those characters from being interpreted in a dangerous context. For example, in HTML, <
can be coded as <
; and >
can be coded as >
; in order to be interpreted and displayed as themselves in text, while within the code itself, they are used for HTML tags. If malicious content is injected into an application that escapes special characters and that malicious content uses <
and >
as HTML tags, those characters are nonetheless not interpreted as HTML tags by the browser if they’ve been correctly escaped in the application code and in this way the attempted attack is diverted.
The most prominent use of XSS is to steal cookies (source: OWASP HttpOnly) and hijack user sessions, but XSS exploits have been used to expose sensitive information, enable access to privileged services and functionality and deliver malware.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which XSS can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Description |
---|---|---|
Stored | Server | The malicious code is inserted in the application (usually as a link) by the attacker. The code is activated every time a user clicks the link. |
Reflected | Server | The attacker delivers a malicious link externally from the vulnerable web site application to a user. When clicked, malicious code is sent to the vulnerable web site, which reflects the attack back to the user’s browser. |
DOM-based | Client | The attacker forces the user’s browser to render a malicious page. The data in the page itself delivers the cross-site scripting data. |
Mutated | The attacker injects code that appears safe, but is then rewritten and modified by the browser, while parsing the markup. An example is rebalancing unclosed quotation marks or even adding quotation marks to unquoted parameters. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to an XSS attack:
- Web servers
- Application servers
- Web application environments
How to prevent
This section describes the top best practices designed to specifically protect your code:
- Sanitize data input in an HTTP request before reflecting it back, ensuring all data is validated, filtered or escaped before echoing anything back to the user, such as the values of query parameters during searches.
- Convert special characters such as
?
,&
,/
,<
,>
and spaces to their respective HTML or URL encoded equivalents. - Give users the option to disable client-side scripts.
- Redirect invalid requests.
- Detect simultaneous logins, including those from two separate IP addresses, and invalidate those sessions.
- Use and enforce a Content Security Policy (source: Wikipedia) to disable any features that might be manipulated for an XSS attack.
- Read the documentation for any of the libraries referenced in your code to understand which elements allow for embedded HTML.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for toastr
.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: jointjs
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.3.0.
Overview
jointjs is a JavaScript diagramming library. It can be used to create either static diagrams or, and more importantly, fully interactive diagramming tools and application builders.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution via util.setByPath
(https://resources.jointjs.com/docs/jointjs/v3.2/joint.html#util.setByPath).
The path used the access the object's key and set the value is not properly sanitized, leading to a Prototype Pollution.
PoC
const jointjs = require("jointjs");
const obj = {};
console.log("Before : " + obj.polluted);
jointjs.util.setByPath({ }, '__proto__/polluted', "yes", '/');
// jointjs.util.setByPath({ }, 'constructor/prototype/polluted', "yes", '/');
console.log("After : " + obj.polluted);
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade jointjs
to version 3.3.0 or higher.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: lodash
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › lodash@4.17.11Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.0.3.
Overview
lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance, & extras.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution. The function defaultsDeep
could be tricked into adding or modifying properties of Object.prototype
using a constructor
payload.
PoC by Snyk
const mergeFn = require('lodash').defaultsDeep;
const payload = '{"constructor": {"prototype": {"a0": true}}}'
function check() {
mergeFn({}, JSON.parse(payload));
if (({})[`a0`] === true) {
console.log(`Vulnerable to Prototype Pollution via ${payload}`);
}
}
check();
For more information, check out our blog post
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade lodash
to version 4.17.12 or higher.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: lodash
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › lodash@4.17.11Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.0.3.
Overview
lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance, & extras.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution via the set
and setwith
functions due to improper user input sanitization.
PoC
lod = require('lodash')
lod.set({}, "__proto__[test2]", "456")
console.log(Object.prototype)
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade lodash
to version 4.17.17 or higher.
References
high severity
- Vulnerable module: lodash
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › lodash@4.17.11Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.0.3.
Overview
lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance, & extras.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Code Injection via template
.
PoC
var _ = require('lodash');
_.template('', { variable: '){console.log(process.env)}; with(obj' })()
Remediation
Upgrade lodash
to version 4.17.21 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: jquery
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › jquery@3.3.1Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.2.0.
Overview
jquery is a package that makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS). Passing HTML from untrusted sources - even after sanitizing it - to one of jQuery's DOM manipulation methods (i.e. .html(), .append()
, and others) may execute untrusted code.
Remediation
Upgrade jquery
to version 3.5.0 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Improper Validation of Unsafe Equivalence in Input in the srcset
attribute, which allows bypassing the imgSrcSanitizationTrustedUrlList
allowlist. An attacker can manipulate the content presented to other users by setting a srcset
value to retrieve data from an unintended domain.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Incomplete Filtering of Special Elements. The srcset
attribute in an HTML <source>
element can be a vector for content spoofing. An attacker can manipulate the content presented to other users by interpolating a srcset
value directly that doesn't comply with image source restrictions, or by using the ngAttrSrcset
directive.
Note: The ngSrcset
and ngPropSrcset
directives are not attack vectors for this vulnerability.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: jquery
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › jquery@3.3.1Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.2.0.
Overview
jquery is a package that makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
Passing HTML containing <option>
elements from untrusted sources - even after sanitizing it - to one of jQuery's DOM manipulation methods (i.e. .html()
, .append()
, and others) may execute untrusted code.
NOTE: This vulnerability was also assigned CVE-2020-23064.
Details
Remediation
Upgrade jquery
to version 3.5.0 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: bootstrap
- Introduced through: bootstrap@3.4.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › bootstrap@3.4.1Remediation: Upgrade to bootstrap@4.0.0.
Overview
bootstrap is a popular front-end framework for faster and easier web development.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting through the data-loading-text
attribute in the button component. An attacker can execute arbitrary JavaScript code by injecting malicious scripts into this attribute.
Note:
This vulnerability is under active investigation and it may be updated with further details.
PoC
<input
id="firstName"
type="text"
value="<script>alert('XSS Input Success')</script><span>Loading XSS</span>"
/>
<button
class="btn btn-primary input-test"
data-loading-text="<span>I'm Loading</span>"
type="button"
>
Click Me
</button>
<script>
$(function () {
$('.input-test').click(function () {
var inputValue = $('#firstName').val();
$(this).data('loadingText', inputValue);
$(this).button('loading', inputValue);
});
});
</script>
Details
A cross-site scripting attack occurs when the attacker tricks a legitimate web-based application or site to accept a request as originating from a trusted source.
This is done by escaping the context of the web application; the web application then delivers that data to its users along with other trusted dynamic content, without validating it. The browser unknowingly executes malicious script on the client side (through client-side languages; usually JavaScript or HTML) in order to perform actions that are otherwise typically blocked by the browser’s Same Origin Policy.
Injecting malicious code is the most prevalent manner by which XSS is exploited; for this reason, escaping characters in order to prevent this manipulation is the top method for securing code against this vulnerability.
Escaping means that the application is coded to mark key characters, and particularly key characters included in user input, to prevent those characters from being interpreted in a dangerous context. For example, in HTML, <
can be coded as <
; and >
can be coded as >
; in order to be interpreted and displayed as themselves in text, while within the code itself, they are used for HTML tags. If malicious content is injected into an application that escapes special characters and that malicious content uses <
and >
as HTML tags, those characters are nonetheless not interpreted as HTML tags by the browser if they’ve been correctly escaped in the application code and in this way the attempted attack is diverted.
The most prominent use of XSS is to steal cookies (source: OWASP HttpOnly) and hijack user sessions, but XSS exploits have been used to expose sensitive information, enable access to privileged services and functionality and deliver malware.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which XSS can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Description |
---|---|---|
Stored | Server | The malicious code is inserted in the application (usually as a link) by the attacker. The code is activated every time a user clicks the link. |
Reflected | Server | The attacker delivers a malicious link externally from the vulnerable web site application to a user. When clicked, malicious code is sent to the vulnerable web site, which reflects the attack back to the user’s browser. |
DOM-based | Client | The attacker forces the user’s browser to render a malicious page. The data in the page itself delivers the cross-site scripting data. |
Mutated | The attacker injects code that appears safe, but is then rewritten and modified by the browser, while parsing the markup. An example is rebalancing unclosed quotation marks or even adding quotation marks to unquoted parameters. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to an XSS attack:
- Web servers
- Application servers
- Web application environments
How to prevent
This section describes the top best practices designed to specifically protect your code:
- Sanitize data input in an HTTP request before reflecting it back, ensuring all data is validated, filtered or escaped before echoing anything back to the user, such as the values of query parameters during searches.
- Convert special characters such as
?
,&
,/
,<
,>
and spaces to their respective HTML or URL encoded equivalents. - Give users the option to disable client-side scripts.
- Redirect invalid requests.
- Detect simultaneous logins, including those from two separate IP addresses, and invalidate those sessions.
- Use and enforce a Content Security Policy (source: Wikipedia) to disable any features that might be manipulated for an XSS attack.
- Read the documentation for any of the libraries referenced in your code to understand which elements allow for embedded HTML.
Remediation
Upgrade bootstrap
to version 4.0.0 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: bootstrap
- Introduced through: bootstrap@3.4.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › bootstrap@3.4.1Remediation: Upgrade to bootstrap@5.0.0.
Overview
bootstrap is a popular front-end framework for faster and easier web development.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS) due to inadequate sanitization of the href
attribute, belonging to an <a>
tag, in the carousel
component. An attacker can execute arbitrary JavaScript within the victim's browser by injecting malicious code into the data-slide
or data-slide-to
attributes.
Notes:
- Exploiting this vulnerability is also possible when the
data_target
attribute doesn’t exist or can’t be found, allowing the bypass of theclickHandler
functionality.
PoC
<div id="myCarousel" class="carousel"></div>
<a href="javascript:alert('XSS href')" data-slide="prev">
Previous Slide
</a>
Details
A cross-site scripting attack occurs when the attacker tricks a legitimate web-based application or site to accept a request as originating from a trusted source.
This is done by escaping the context of the web application; the web application then delivers that data to its users along with other trusted dynamic content, without validating it. The browser unknowingly executes malicious script on the client side (through client-side languages; usually JavaScript or HTML) in order to perform actions that are otherwise typically blocked by the browser’s Same Origin Policy.
Injecting malicious code is the most prevalent manner by which XSS is exploited; for this reason, escaping characters in order to prevent this manipulation is the top method for securing code against this vulnerability.
Escaping means that the application is coded to mark key characters, and particularly key characters included in user input, to prevent those characters from being interpreted in a dangerous context. For example, in HTML, <
can be coded as <
; and >
can be coded as >
; in order to be interpreted and displayed as themselves in text, while within the code itself, they are used for HTML tags. If malicious content is injected into an application that escapes special characters and that malicious content uses <
and >
as HTML tags, those characters are nonetheless not interpreted as HTML tags by the browser if they’ve been correctly escaped in the application code and in this way the attempted attack is diverted.
The most prominent use of XSS is to steal cookies (source: OWASP HttpOnly) and hijack user sessions, but XSS exploits have been used to expose sensitive information, enable access to privileged services and functionality and deliver malware.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which XSS can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Description |
---|---|---|
Stored | Server | The malicious code is inserted in the application (usually as a link) by the attacker. The code is activated every time a user clicks the link. |
Reflected | Server | The attacker delivers a malicious link externally from the vulnerable web site application to a user. When clicked, malicious code is sent to the vulnerable web site, which reflects the attack back to the user’s browser. |
DOM-based | Client | The attacker forces the user’s browser to render a malicious page. The data in the page itself delivers the cross-site scripting data. |
Mutated | The attacker injects code that appears safe, but is then rewritten and modified by the browser, while parsing the markup. An example is rebalancing unclosed quotation marks or even adding quotation marks to unquoted parameters. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to an XSS attack:
- Web servers
- Application servers
- Web application environments
How to prevent
This section describes the top best practices designed to specifically protect your code:
- Sanitize data input in an HTTP request before reflecting it back, ensuring all data is validated, filtered or escaped before echoing anything back to the user, such as the values of query parameters during searches.
- Convert special characters such as
?
,&
,/
,<
,>
and spaces to their respective HTML or URL encoded equivalents. - Give users the option to disable client-side scripts.
- Redirect invalid requests.
- Detect simultaneous logins, including those from two separate IP addresses, and invalidate those sessions.
- Use and enforce a Content Security Policy (source: Wikipedia) to disable any features that might be manipulated for an XSS attack.
- Read the documentation for any of the libraries referenced in your code to understand which elements allow for embedded HTML.
Remediation
Upgrade bootstrap
to version 5.0.0-beta1 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: jointjs
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.3.0.
Overview
jointjs is a JavaScript diagramming library. It can be used to create either static diagrams or, and more importantly, fully interactive diagramming tools and application builders.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) via the unsetByPath
function.
PoC
jointjs.util.unsetByPath({}, '__proto__/toString', '/');
console.log(({}).toString()); // TypeError: {}.toString is not a function
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its intended and legitimate users.
Unlike other vulnerabilities, DoS attacks usually do not aim at breaching security. Rather, they are focused on making websites and services unavailable to genuine users resulting in downtime.
One popular Denial of Service vulnerability is DDoS (a Distributed Denial of Service), an attack that attempts to clog network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines.
When it comes to open source libraries, DoS vulnerabilities allow attackers to trigger such a crash or crippling of the service by using a flaw either in the application code or from the use of open source libraries.
Two common types of DoS vulnerabilities:
High CPU/Memory Consumption- An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to take a disproportionate amount of time to process. For example, commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload.
Crash - An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to crash. For Example, npm
ws
package
Remediation
Upgrade jointjs
to version 3.3.0 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: jointjs
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.4.2.
Overview
jointjs is a JavaScript diagramming library. It can be used to create either static diagrams or, and more importantly, fully interactive diagramming tools and application builders.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution. A type confusion vulnerability can lead to a bypass of CVE-2020-28480 when the user-provided keys used in the path
parameter are arrays in the setByPath
function.
PoC
const jointjs = require("jointjs");
// jointjs.util.setByPath({}, '__proto__/polluted', 'yes');
// jointjs.util.setByPath({}, ['__proto__', 'polluted'], 'yes');
// console.log(polluted); // ReferenceError: polluted is not defined
jointjs.util.setByPath({}, [['__proto__'], 'polluted'], 'yes');
console.log(polluted); // yes
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade jointjs
to version 3.4.2 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: jquery
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › jquery@3.3.1Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.0.0.
Overview
jquery is a package that makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution. The extend
function can be tricked into modifying the prototype of Object
when the attacker controls part of the structure passed to this function. This can let an attacker add or modify an existing property that will then exist on all objects.
Note: CVE-2019-5428 is a duplicate of CVE-2019-11358
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade jquery
to version 3.4.0 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: minimist
- Introduced through: rework-npm-cli@0.1.3
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › rework-npm-cli@0.1.3 › optimist@0.6.1 › minimist@0.0.10
Overview
minimist is a parse argument options module.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution. The library could be tricked into adding or modifying properties of Object.prototype
using a constructor
or __proto__
payload.
PoC by Snyk
require('minimist')('--__proto__.injected0 value0'.split(' '));
console.log(({}).injected0 === 'value0'); // true
require('minimist')('--constructor.prototype.injected1 value1'.split(' '));
console.log(({}).injected1 === 'value1'); // true
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade minimist
to version 0.2.1, 1.2.3 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) by providing a custom locale rule that makes it possible to assign the parameter in posPre: ' '.repeat()
of NUMBER_FORMATS.PATTERNS[1].posPre
with a very high value.
Note:
This package has been deprecated and is no longer maintained.
The vulnerable versions are 1.7.0 and higher.
PoC:
class AppCtrl {
constructor($locale, $timeout) {
'ngInject';
const ctrl = this;
ctrl.currencySymbol = '$';
ctrl.amount = 100;
ctrl.posPre = $locale.NUMBER_FORMATS.PATTERNS[1].posPre;
ctrl.onPosPreChange = () => {
$locale.NUMBER_FORMATS.PATTERNS[1].posPre = ctrl.posPre;
const amount = ctrl.amount;
ctrl.amount = 0;
$timeout(() => (ctrl.amount = amount));
};
ctrl.onReDos = () => {
ctrl.currencySymbol = '';
ctrl.posPre = ' '.repeat(1000000);
$locale.NUMBER_FORMATS.PATTERNS[1].posPre = ctrl.posPre;
};
}
}
export default AppCtrl;
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its original and legitimate users. There are many types of DoS attacks, ranging from trying to clog the network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines (a Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS - attack) to sending crafted requests that cause a system to crash or take a disproportional amount of time to process.
The Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) is a type of Denial of Service attack. Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but they aren't very intuitive and can ultimately end up making it easy for attackers to take your site down.
Let’s take the following regular expression as an example:
regex = /A(B|C+)+D/
This regular expression accomplishes the following:
A
The string must start with the letter 'A'(B|C+)+
The string must then follow the letter A with either the letter 'B' or some number of occurrences of the letter 'C' (the+
matches one or more times). The+
at the end of this section states that we can look for one or more matches of this section.D
Finally, we ensure this section of the string ends with a 'D'
The expression would match inputs such as ABBD
, ABCCCCD
, ABCBCCCD
and ACCCCCD
It most cases, it doesn't take very long for a regex engine to find a match:
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCD")'
0.04s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.052 total
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCX")'
1.79s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.812 total
The entire process of testing it against a 30 characters long string takes around ~52ms. But when given an invalid string, it takes nearly two seconds to complete the test, over ten times as long as it took to test a valid string. The dramatic difference is due to the way regular expressions get evaluated.
Most Regex engines will work very similarly (with minor differences). The engine will match the first possible way to accept the current character and proceed to the next one. If it then fails to match the next one, it will backtrack and see if there was another way to digest the previous character. If it goes too far down the rabbit hole only to find out the string doesn’t match in the end, and if many characters have multiple valid regex paths, the number of backtracking steps can become very large, resulting in what is known as catastrophic backtracking.
Let's look at how our expression runs into this problem, using a shorter string: "ACCCX". While it seems fairly straightforward, there are still four different ways that the engine could match those three C's:
- CCC
- CC+C
- C+CC
- C+C+C.
The engine has to try each of those combinations to see if any of them potentially match against the expression. When you combine that with the other steps the engine must take, we can use RegEx 101 debugger to see the engine has to take a total of 38 steps before it can determine the string doesn't match.
From there, the number of steps the engine must use to validate a string just continues to grow.
String | Number of C's | Number of steps |
---|---|---|
ACCCX | 3 | 38 |
ACCCCX | 4 | 71 |
ACCCCCX | 5 | 136 |
ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCX | 14 | 65,553 |
By the time the string includes 14 C's, the engine has to take over 65,000 steps just to see if the string is valid. These extreme situations can cause them to work very slowly (exponentially related to input size, as shown above), allowing an attacker to exploit this and can cause the service to excessively consume CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via the angular.copy()
utility function due to the usage of an insecure regular expression.
Exploiting this vulnerability is possible by a large carefully-crafted input, which can result in catastrophic backtracking.
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its original and legitimate users. There are many types of DoS attacks, ranging from trying to clog the network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines (a Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS - attack) to sending crafted requests that cause a system to crash or take a disproportional amount of time to process.
The Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) is a type of Denial of Service attack. Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but they aren't very intuitive and can ultimately end up making it easy for attackers to take your site down.
Let’s take the following regular expression as an example:
regex = /A(B|C+)+D/
This regular expression accomplishes the following:
A
The string must start with the letter 'A'(B|C+)+
The string must then follow the letter A with either the letter 'B' or some number of occurrences of the letter 'C' (the+
matches one or more times). The+
at the end of this section states that we can look for one or more matches of this section.D
Finally, we ensure this section of the string ends with a 'D'
The expression would match inputs such as ABBD
, ABCCCCD
, ABCBCCCD
and ACCCCCD
It most cases, it doesn't take very long for a regex engine to find a match:
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCD")'
0.04s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.052 total
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCX")'
1.79s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.812 total
The entire process of testing it against a 30 characters long string takes around ~52ms. But when given an invalid string, it takes nearly two seconds to complete the test, over ten times as long as it took to test a valid string. The dramatic difference is due to the way regular expressions get evaluated.
Most Regex engines will work very similarly (with minor differences). The engine will match the first possible way to accept the current character and proceed to the next one. If it then fails to match the next one, it will backtrack and see if there was another way to digest the previous character. If it goes too far down the rabbit hole only to find out the string doesn’t match in the end, and if many characters have multiple valid regex paths, the number of backtracking steps can become very large, resulting in what is known as catastrophic backtracking.
Let's look at how our expression runs into this problem, using a shorter string: "ACCCX". While it seems fairly straightforward, there are still four different ways that the engine could match those three C's:
- CCC
- CC+C
- C+CC
- C+C+C.
The engine has to try each of those combinations to see if any of them potentially match against the expression. When you combine that with the other steps the engine must take, we can use RegEx 101 debugger to see the engine has to take a total of 38 steps before it can determine the string doesn't match.
From there, the number of steps the engine must use to validate a string just continues to grow.
String | Number of C's | Number of steps |
---|---|---|
ACCCX | 3 | 38 |
ACCCCX | 4 | 71 |
ACCCCCX | 5 | 136 |
ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCX | 14 | 65,553 |
By the time the string includes 14 C's, the engine has to take over 65,000 steps just to see if the string is valid. These extreme situations can cause them to work very slowly (exponentially related to input size, as shown above), allowing an attacker to exploit this and can cause the service to excessively consume CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via the $resource
service due to the usage of an insecure regular expression.
Exploiting this vulnerability is possible by a large carefully-crafted input, which can result in catastrophic backtracking.
PoC
The vulnerability manifests itself when the $resource
service is used with a URL that contains a large number of slashes followed by a non-slash character (for example, /some/url/////.../////foo
):
$resource('/some/url/${manySlashesFollowedByNonSlash}`).query();
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its original and legitimate users. There are many types of DoS attacks, ranging from trying to clog the network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines (a Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS - attack) to sending crafted requests that cause a system to crash or take a disproportional amount of time to process.
The Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) is a type of Denial of Service attack. Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but they aren't very intuitive and can ultimately end up making it easy for attackers to take your site down.
Let’s take the following regular expression as an example:
regex = /A(B|C+)+D/
This regular expression accomplishes the following:
A
The string must start with the letter 'A'(B|C+)+
The string must then follow the letter A with either the letter 'B' or some number of occurrences of the letter 'C' (the+
matches one or more times). The+
at the end of this section states that we can look for one or more matches of this section.D
Finally, we ensure this section of the string ends with a 'D'
The expression would match inputs such as ABBD
, ABCCCCD
, ABCBCCCD
and ACCCCCD
It most cases, it doesn't take very long for a regex engine to find a match:
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCD")'
0.04s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.052 total
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCX")'
1.79s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.812 total
The entire process of testing it against a 30 characters long string takes around ~52ms. But when given an invalid string, it takes nearly two seconds to complete the test, over ten times as long as it took to test a valid string. The dramatic difference is due to the way regular expressions get evaluated.
Most Regex engines will work very similarly (with minor differences). The engine will match the first possible way to accept the current character and proceed to the next one. If it then fails to match the next one, it will backtrack and see if there was another way to digest the previous character. If it goes too far down the rabbit hole only to find out the string doesn’t match in the end, and if many characters have multiple valid regex paths, the number of backtracking steps can become very large, resulting in what is known as catastrophic backtracking.
Let's look at how our expression runs into this problem, using a shorter string: "ACCCX". While it seems fairly straightforward, there are still four different ways that the engine could match those three C's:
- CCC
- CC+C
- C+CC
- C+C+C.
The engine has to try each of those combinations to see if any of them potentially match against the expression. When you combine that with the other steps the engine must take, we can use RegEx 101 debugger to see the engine has to take a total of 38 steps before it can determine the string doesn't match.
From there, the number of steps the engine must use to validate a string just continues to grow.
String | Number of C's | Number of steps |
---|---|---|
ACCCX | 3 | 38 |
ACCCCX | 4 | 71 |
ACCCCCX | 5 | 136 |
ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCX | 14 | 65,553 |
By the time the string includes 14 C's, the engine has to take over 65,000 steps just to see if the string is valid. These extreme situations can cause them to work very slowly (exponentially related to input size, as shown above), allowing an attacker to exploit this and can cause the service to excessively consume CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via the <input type="url">
element due to the usage of an insecure regular expression in the input[url]
functionality.
Exploiting this vulnerability is possible by a large carefully-crafted input, which can result in catastrophic backtracking.
PoC
The vulnerability manifests itself when a <input type="url">
element is filled with an invalid URL consisting of any scheme followed by a large number of slashes (for example, http://///.../////
):
<input type="url" ng-model="urlWithManySlashes" />
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its original and legitimate users. There are many types of DoS attacks, ranging from trying to clog the network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines (a Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS - attack) to sending crafted requests that cause a system to crash or take a disproportional amount of time to process.
The Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) is a type of Denial of Service attack. Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but they aren't very intuitive and can ultimately end up making it easy for attackers to take your site down.
Let’s take the following regular expression as an example:
regex = /A(B|C+)+D/
This regular expression accomplishes the following:
A
The string must start with the letter 'A'(B|C+)+
The string must then follow the letter A with either the letter 'B' or some number of occurrences of the letter 'C' (the+
matches one or more times). The+
at the end of this section states that we can look for one or more matches of this section.D
Finally, we ensure this section of the string ends with a 'D'
The expression would match inputs such as ABBD
, ABCCCCD
, ABCBCCCD
and ACCCCCD
It most cases, it doesn't take very long for a regex engine to find a match:
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCD")'
0.04s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.052 total
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCX")'
1.79s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.812 total
The entire process of testing it against a 30 characters long string takes around ~52ms. But when given an invalid string, it takes nearly two seconds to complete the test, over ten times as long as it took to test a valid string. The dramatic difference is due to the way regular expressions get evaluated.
Most Regex engines will work very similarly (with minor differences). The engine will match the first possible way to accept the current character and proceed to the next one. If it then fails to match the next one, it will backtrack and see if there was another way to digest the previous character. If it goes too far down the rabbit hole only to find out the string doesn’t match in the end, and if many characters have multiple valid regex paths, the number of backtracking steps can become very large, resulting in what is known as catastrophic backtracking.
Let's look at how our expression runs into this problem, using a shorter string: "ACCCX". While it seems fairly straightforward, there are still four different ways that the engine could match those three C's:
- CCC
- CC+C
- C+CC
- C+C+C.
The engine has to try each of those combinations to see if any of them potentially match against the expression. When you combine that with the other steps the engine must take, we can use RegEx 101 debugger to see the engine has to take a total of 38 steps before it can determine the string doesn't match.
From there, the number of steps the engine must use to validate a string just continues to grow.
String | Number of C's | Number of steps |
---|---|---|
ACCCX | 3 | 38 |
ACCCCX | 4 | 71 |
ACCCCCX | 5 | 136 |
ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCX | 14 | 65,553 |
By the time the string includes 14 C's, the engine has to take over 65,000 steps just to see if the string is valid. These extreme situations can cause them to work very slowly (exponentially related to input size, as shown above), allowing an attacker to exploit this and can cause the service to excessively consume CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: lodash
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1 › lodash@4.17.11Remediation: Upgrade to jointjs@3.0.3.
Overview
lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance, & extras.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via the toNumber
, trim
and trimEnd
functions.
POC
var lo = require('lodash');
function build_blank (n) {
var ret = "1"
for (var i = 0; i < n; i++) {
ret += " "
}
return ret + "1";
}
var s = build_blank(50000)
var time0 = Date.now();
lo.trim(s)
var time_cost0 = Date.now() - time0;
console.log("time_cost0: " + time_cost0)
var time1 = Date.now();
lo.toNumber(s)
var time_cost1 = Date.now() - time1;
console.log("time_cost1: " + time_cost1)
var time2 = Date.now();
lo.trimEnd(s)
var time_cost2 = Date.now() - time2;
console.log("time_cost2: " + time_cost2)
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its original and legitimate users. There are many types of DoS attacks, ranging from trying to clog the network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines (a Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS - attack) to sending crafted requests that cause a system to crash or take a disproportional amount of time to process.
The Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) is a type of Denial of Service attack. Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but they aren't very intuitive and can ultimately end up making it easy for attackers to take your site down.
Let’s take the following regular expression as an example:
regex = /A(B|C+)+D/
This regular expression accomplishes the following:
A
The string must start with the letter 'A'(B|C+)+
The string must then follow the letter A with either the letter 'B' or some number of occurrences of the letter 'C' (the+
matches one or more times). The+
at the end of this section states that we can look for one or more matches of this section.D
Finally, we ensure this section of the string ends with a 'D'
The expression would match inputs such as ABBD
, ABCCCCD
, ABCBCCCD
and ACCCCCD
It most cases, it doesn't take very long for a regex engine to find a match:
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCD")'
0.04s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.052 total
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCX")'
1.79s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.812 total
The entire process of testing it against a 30 characters long string takes around ~52ms. But when given an invalid string, it takes nearly two seconds to complete the test, over ten times as long as it took to test a valid string. The dramatic difference is due to the way regular expressions get evaluated.
Most Regex engines will work very similarly (with minor differences). The engine will match the first possible way to accept the current character and proceed to the next one. If it then fails to match the next one, it will backtrack and see if there was another way to digest the previous character. If it goes too far down the rabbit hole only to find out the string doesn’t match in the end, and if many characters have multiple valid regex paths, the number of backtracking steps can become very large, resulting in what is known as catastrophic backtracking.
Let's look at how our expression runs into this problem, using a shorter string: "ACCCX". While it seems fairly straightforward, there are still four different ways that the engine could match those three C's:
- CCC
- CC+C
- C+CC
- C+C+C.
The engine has to try each of those combinations to see if any of them potentially match against the expression. When you combine that with the other steps the engine must take, we can use RegEx 101 debugger to see the engine has to take a total of 38 steps before it can determine the string doesn't match.
From there, the number of steps the engine must use to validate a string just continues to grow.
String | Number of C's | Number of steps |
---|---|---|
ACCCX | 3 | 38 |
ACCCCX | 4 | 71 |
ACCCCCX | 5 | 136 |
ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCX | 14 | 65,553 |
By the time the string includes 14 C's, the engine has to take over 65,000 steps just to see if the string is valid. These extreme situations can cause them to work very slowly (exponentially related to input size, as shown above), allowing an attacker to exploit this and can cause the service to excessively consume CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Remediation
Upgrade lodash
to version 4.17.21 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9Remediation: Upgrade to angular@1.8.0.
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS). The regex-based input HTML replacement may turn sanitized code into unsanitized one.
Wrapping <option>
elements in <select>
ones changes parsing behavior, leading to possibly unsanitizing code.
Details
A cross-site scripting attack occurs when the attacker tricks a legitimate web-based application or site to accept a request as originating from a trusted source.
This is done by escaping the context of the web application; the web application then delivers that data to its users along with other trusted dynamic content, without validating it. The browser unknowingly executes malicious script on the client side (through client-side languages; usually JavaScript or HTML) in order to perform actions that are otherwise typically blocked by the browser’s Same Origin Policy.
Injecting malicious code is the most prevalent manner by which XSS is exploited; for this reason, escaping characters in order to prevent this manipulation is the top method for securing code against this vulnerability.
Escaping means that the application is coded to mark key characters, and particularly key characters included in user input, to prevent those characters from being interpreted in a dangerous context. For example, in HTML, <
can be coded as <
; and >
can be coded as >
; in order to be interpreted and displayed as themselves in text, while within the code itself, they are used for HTML tags. If malicious content is injected into an application that escapes special characters and that malicious content uses <
and >
as HTML tags, those characters are nonetheless not interpreted as HTML tags by the browser if they’ve been correctly escaped in the application code and in this way the attempted attack is diverted.
The most prominent use of XSS is to steal cookies (source: OWASP HttpOnly) and hijack user sessions, but XSS exploits have been used to expose sensitive information, enable access to privileged services and functionality and deliver malware.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which XSS can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Description |
---|---|---|
Stored | Server | The malicious code is inserted in the application (usually as a link) by the attacker. The code is activated every time a user clicks the link. |
Reflected | Server | The attacker delivers a malicious link externally from the vulnerable web site application to a user. When clicked, malicious code is sent to the vulnerable web site, which reflects the attack back to the user’s browser. |
DOM-based | Client | The attacker forces the user’s browser to render a malicious page. The data in the page itself delivers the cross-site scripting data. |
Mutated | The attacker injects code that appears safe, but is then rewritten and modified by the browser, while parsing the markup. An example is rebalancing unclosed quotation marks or even adding quotation marks to unquoted parameters. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to an XSS attack:
- Web servers
- Application servers
- Web application environments
How to prevent
This section describes the top best practices designed to specifically protect your code:
- Sanitize data input in an HTTP request before reflecting it back, ensuring all data is validated, filtered or escaped before echoing anything back to the user, such as the values of query parameters during searches.
- Convert special characters such as
?
,&
,/
,<
,>
and spaces to their respective HTML or URL encoded equivalents. - Give users the option to disable client-side scripts.
- Redirect invalid requests.
- Detect simultaneous logins, including those from two separate IP addresses, and invalidate those sessions.
- Use and enforce a Content Security Policy (source: Wikipedia) to disable any features that might be manipulated for an XSS attack.
- Read the documentation for any of the libraries referenced in your code to understand which elements allow for embedded HTML.
Remediation
Upgrade angular
to version 1.8.0 or higher.
References
medium severity
- Vulnerable module: angular
- Introduced through: angular@1.7.9
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › angular@1.7.9
Overview
angular is a package that lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It also lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS) due to insecure page caching in the Internet Explorer browser, which allows interpolation of <textarea>
elements.
Details
A cross-site scripting attack occurs when the attacker tricks a legitimate web-based application or site to accept a request as originating from a trusted source.
This is done by escaping the context of the web application; the web application then delivers that data to its users along with other trusted dynamic content, without validating it. The browser unknowingly executes malicious script on the client side (through client-side languages; usually JavaScript or HTML) in order to perform actions that are otherwise typically blocked by the browser’s Same Origin Policy.
Injecting malicious code is the most prevalent manner by which XSS is exploited; for this reason, escaping characters in order to prevent this manipulation is the top method for securing code against this vulnerability.
Escaping means that the application is coded to mark key characters, and particularly key characters included in user input, to prevent those characters from being interpreted in a dangerous context. For example, in HTML, <
can be coded as <
; and >
can be coded as >
; in order to be interpreted and displayed as themselves in text, while within the code itself, they are used for HTML tags. If malicious content is injected into an application that escapes special characters and that malicious content uses <
and >
as HTML tags, those characters are nonetheless not interpreted as HTML tags by the browser if they’ve been correctly escaped in the application code and in this way the attempted attack is diverted.
The most prominent use of XSS is to steal cookies (source: OWASP HttpOnly) and hijack user sessions, but XSS exploits have been used to expose sensitive information, enable access to privileged services and functionality and deliver malware.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which XSS can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Description |
---|---|---|
Stored | Server | The malicious code is inserted in the application (usually as a link) by the attacker. The code is activated every time a user clicks the link. |
Reflected | Server | The attacker delivers a malicious link externally from the vulnerable web site application to a user. When clicked, malicious code is sent to the vulnerable web site, which reflects the attack back to the user’s browser. |
DOM-based | Client | The attacker forces the user’s browser to render a malicious page. The data in the page itself delivers the cross-site scripting data. |
Mutated | The attacker injects code that appears safe, but is then rewritten and modified by the browser, while parsing the markup. An example is rebalancing unclosed quotation marks or even adding quotation marks to unquoted parameters. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to an XSS attack:
- Web servers
- Application servers
- Web application environments
How to prevent
This section describes the top best practices designed to specifically protect your code:
- Sanitize data input in an HTTP request before reflecting it back, ensuring all data is validated, filtered or escaped before echoing anything back to the user, such as the values of query parameters during searches.
- Convert special characters such as
?
,&
,/
,<
,>
and spaces to their respective HTML or URL encoded equivalents. - Give users the option to disable client-side scripts.
- Redirect invalid requests.
- Detect simultaneous logins, including those from two separate IP addresses, and invalidate those sessions.
- Use and enforce a Content Security Policy (source: Wikipedia) to disable any features that might be manipulated for an XSS attack.
- Read the documentation for any of the libraries referenced in your code to understand which elements allow for embedded HTML.
Remediation
There is no fixed version for angular
.
References
medium severity
- Module: jointjs
- Introduced through: jointjs@2.2.1
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › jointjs@2.2.1
MPL-2.0 license
low severity
patched
- Vulnerable module: mime
- Introduced through: rework-npm-cli@0.1.3
Vulnerability patched for: rework-npm-cli rework mime
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › rework-npm-cli@0.1.3 › rework@0.20.3 › mime@1.2.11Remediation: Open PR to patch mime@1.2.11.
Overview
mime is a comprehensive, compact MIME type module.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS). It uses regex the following regex /.*[\.\/\\]/
in its lookup, which can cause a slowdown of 2 seconds for 50k characters.
Details
Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its original and legitimate users. There are many types of DoS attacks, ranging from trying to clog the network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines (a Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS - attack) to sending crafted requests that cause a system to crash or take a disproportional amount of time to process.
The Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) is a type of Denial of Service attack. Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but they aren't very intuitive and can ultimately end up making it easy for attackers to take your site down.
Let’s take the following regular expression as an example:
regex = /A(B|C+)+D/
This regular expression accomplishes the following:
A
The string must start with the letter 'A'(B|C+)+
The string must then follow the letter A with either the letter 'B' or some number of occurrences of the letter 'C' (the+
matches one or more times). The+
at the end of this section states that we can look for one or more matches of this section.D
Finally, we ensure this section of the string ends with a 'D'
The expression would match inputs such as ABBD
, ABCCCCD
, ABCBCCCD
and ACCCCCD
It most cases, it doesn't take very long for a regex engine to find a match:
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCD")'
0.04s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.052 total
$ time node -e '/A(B|C+)+D/.test("ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCX")'
1.79s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.812 total
The entire process of testing it against a 30 characters long string takes around ~52ms. But when given an invalid string, it takes nearly two seconds to complete the test, over ten times as long as it took to test a valid string. The dramatic difference is due to the way regular expressions get evaluated.
Most Regex engines will work very similarly (with minor differences). The engine will match the first possible way to accept the current character and proceed to the next one. If it then fails to match the next one, it will backtrack and see if there was another way to digest the previous character. If it goes too far down the rabbit hole only to find out the string doesn’t match in the end, and if many characters have multiple valid regex paths, the number of backtracking steps can become very large, resulting in what is known as catastrophic backtracking.
Let's look at how our expression runs into this problem, using a shorter string: "ACCCX". While it seems fairly straightforward, there are still four different ways that the engine could match those three C's:
- CCC
- CC+C
- C+CC
- C+C+C.
The engine has to try each of those combinations to see if any of them potentially match against the expression. When you combine that with the other steps the engine must take, we can use RegEx 101 debugger to see the engine has to take a total of 38 steps before it can determine the string doesn't match.
From there, the number of steps the engine must use to validate a string just continues to grow.
String | Number of C's | Number of steps |
---|---|---|
ACCCX | 3 | 38 |
ACCCCX | 4 | 71 |
ACCCCCX | 5 | 136 |
ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCX | 14 | 65,553 |
By the time the string includes 14 C's, the engine has to take over 65,000 steps just to see if the string is valid. These extreme situations can cause them to work very slowly (exponentially related to input size, as shown above), allowing an attacker to exploit this and can cause the service to excessively consume CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Remediation
Upgrade mime
to version 1.4.1, 2.0.3 or higher.
References
low severity
- Vulnerable module: minimist
- Introduced through: rework-npm-cli@0.1.3
Detailed paths
-
Introduced through: owasp-threat-dragon-core@mike-goodwin/owasp-threat-dragon-core#97d46ca3d06b2800d5327789d3bf43c924e03dfe › rework-npm-cli@0.1.3 › optimist@0.6.1 › minimist@0.0.10
Overview
minimist is a parse argument options module.
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution due to a missing handler to Function.prototype
.
Notes:
This vulnerability is a bypass to CVE-2020-7598
The reason for the different CVSS between CVE-2021-44906 to CVE-2020-7598, is that CVE-2020-7598 can pollute objects, while CVE-2021-44906 can pollute only function.
PoC by Snyk
require('minimist')('--_.constructor.constructor.prototype.foo bar'.split(' '));
console.log((function(){}).foo); // bar
Details
Prototype Pollution is a vulnerability affecting JavaScript. Prototype Pollution refers to the ability to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes, such as objects. JavaScript allows all Object attributes to be altered, including their magical attributes such as __proto__
, constructor
and prototype
. An attacker manipulates these attributes to overwrite, or pollute, a JavaScript application object prototype of the base object by injecting other values. Properties on the Object.prototype
are then inherited by all the JavaScript objects through the prototype chain. When that happens, this leads to either denial of service by triggering JavaScript exceptions, or it tampers with the application source code to force the code path that the attacker injects, thereby leading to remote code execution.
There are two main ways in which the pollution of prototypes occurs:
Unsafe
Object
recursive mergeProperty definition by path
Unsafe Object recursive merge
The logic of a vulnerable recursive merge function follows the following high-level model:
merge (target, source)
foreach property of source
if property exists and is an object on both the target and the source
merge(target[property], source[property])
else
target[property] = source[property]
When the source object contains a property named __proto__
defined with Object.defineProperty()
, the condition that checks if the property exists and is an object on both the target and the source passes and the merge recurses with the target, being the prototype of Object
and the source of Object
as defined by the attacker. Properties are then copied on the Object
prototype.
Clone operations are a special sub-class of unsafe recursive merges, which occur when a recursive merge is conducted on an empty object: merge({},source)
.
lodash
and Hoek
are examples of libraries susceptible to recursive merge attacks.
Property definition by path
There are a few JavaScript libraries that use an API to define property values on an object based on a given path. The function that is generally affected contains this signature: theFunction(object, path, value)
If the attacker can control the value of “path”, they can set this value to __proto__.myValue
. myValue
is then assigned to the prototype of the class of the object.
Types of attacks
There are a few methods by which Prototype Pollution can be manipulated:
Type | Origin | Short description |
---|---|---|
Denial of service (DoS) | Client | This is the most likely attack. DoS occurs when Object holds generic functions that are implicitly called for various operations (for example, toString and valueOf ). The attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr and alters its state to an unexpected value such as Int or Object . In this case, the code fails and is likely to cause a denial of service. For example: if an attacker pollutes Object.prototype.toString by defining it as an integer, if the codebase at any point was reliant on someobject.toString() it would fail. |
Remote Code Execution | Client | Remote code execution is generally only possible in cases where the codebase evaluates a specific attribute of an object, and then executes that evaluation. For example: eval(someobject.someattr) . In this case, if the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.someattr they are likely to be able to leverage this in order to execute code. |
Property Injection | Client | The attacker pollutes properties that the codebase relies on for their informative value, including security properties such as cookies or tokens. For example: if a codebase checks privileges for someuser.isAdmin , then when the attacker pollutes Object.prototype.isAdmin and sets it to equal true , they can then achieve admin privileges. |
Affected environments
The following environments are susceptible to a Prototype Pollution attack:
Application server
Web server
Web browser
How to prevent
Freeze the prototype— use
Object.freeze (Object.prototype)
.Require schema validation of JSON input.
Avoid using unsafe recursive merge functions.
Consider using objects without prototypes (for example,
Object.create(null)
), breaking the prototype chain and preventing pollution.As a best practice use
Map
instead ofObject
.
For more information on this vulnerability type:
Arteau, Oliver. “JavaScript prototype pollution attack in NodeJS application.” GitHub, 26 May 2018
Remediation
Upgrade minimist
to version 0.2.4, 1.2.6 or higher.