Web Hacking: Attacks and Defense

"Both novice and seasoned readers will come away with an increased understanding of how Web hacking occurs and enhanced skill at developing defenses against such Web attacks. Technologies covered include Web languages and protocols, Web and database servers, payment systems and shopping carts, and critical vulnerabilities associated with URLs. This book is a virtual battle plan that will help you identify and eliminate threats that could take your Web site off line..."
--From the Foreword by William C. Boni, Chief Information Security Officer, Motorola

"Just because you have a firewall and IDS sensor does not mean you aresecure; this book shows you why."
--Lance Spitzner, Founder, The Honeynet Project

Whether it's petty defacing or full-scale cyber robbery, hackers are moving to the Web along with everyone else. Organizations using Web-based business applications are increasingly at risk. Web Hacking: Attacks and Defense is a powerful guide to the latest information on Web attacks and defense. Security experts Stuart McClure (lead author of Hacking Exposed), Saumil Shah, and Shreeraj Shah present a broad range of Web attacks and defense.

Features include:

• Overview of the Web and what hackers go after
• Complete Web application security methodologies
• Detailed analysis of hack techniques
• Countermeasures
• What to do at development time to eliminate vulnerabilities
• New case studies and eye-opening attack scenarios
• Advanced Web hacking concepts, methodologies, and tools

"How Do They Do It?" sections show how and why different attacks succeed, including:

• Cyber graffiti and Web site defacements
• e-Shoplifting
• Database access and Web applications
• Java™ application servers; how to harden your Java™ Web Server
• Impersonation and session hijacking
• Buffer overflows, the most wicked of attacks
• Automated attack tools and worms

Appendices include a listing of Web and database ports, cheat sheets for remote command execution, and source code disclosure techniques.

Web Hacking informs from the trenches. Experts show you how to connect the dots--how to put the stages of a Web hack together so you can best defend against them. Written for maximum brain absorption with unparalleled technical content and battle-tested analysis, Web Hacking will help you combat potentially costly security threats and attacks.

0201761769B07192002

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E-Shoplifting

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Index

Preface

"We're Secure, We Have a Firewall"

If only we got a nickel every time we heard a client utter this pithy phrase. On second thought, that would unfortunate as we would probably not be writing this book; we'd be sipping Pina Colada's on some white sand beach by now...

For those skeptics among you, all warm and cozy next to your firewall, just remember this: over 65% of reported attacks occur over TCP port 80, the traditional web port (http://www.incidents.org). Is the web threat real? It's all too real.

To Err is Human

After performing hundreds of security reviews over the decades, the authors have known for some time what you are about to know (if you don't already): Nothing can be truly secure. Error is at the heart of every security breach and as the saying goes: to err is human. No level of firewall, intrusion detection system (IDS), or anti-virus software will make you secure. Surprised this type of comment introduces a security book? Don't be. It is the harsh reality that must be accepted before the race to security can be started.

So what should we do, just throw up our hands, turn the power off to our computers and revert back 30 years; forgetting this Internet or the modem or the computer really happened? Sure, you can do that but you would be alone in your efforts. The Internet and all it has to offer is undeniable: increased communication, increased information sharing, connecting with people of all races, creeds, colors, sexes, and intelligence without boundaries or limits. And that's just the home user's benefits. Businesses use the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, making revenue and transmitting funds around the world at the blink of an eye. Anyone who denies the ubiquity and staying power of the Internet is just kidding themselves.

Writing on the Wall

Over three years ago, one of the authors wrote a foreboding article that was indicative of things to come. The column printed on August 9, 1999 and was titled "Bane of e-commerce: We're secure: We allow only Web traffic through our firewall" (http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/99/08/09/990809opsecwatch.xml). The writing was on the security wall at that time but no one wanted to believe it, much less talk about it. They were too caught up in either hyped technologies such as Firewalls, IDS, and virtual private networks (VPN), or peripheral technologies that never hit mainstream, such as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), and single signon.

So why the tremendous interest in the Web and its security now? Because hacking events are frequent in today's connected world. And people are beginning to understand how a single vulnerability in a web application can expose an entire company's jewels to an attacker (a.k.a. Code Red and Nimda worms).

Book Organization

This book as been organized into four sections:

E-Commerce Playground

URLs Unraveled

How do they do it?

Advanced Web Kung Fu

The content in each section gets progressively more advanced in its content and delivery, going from a brief web languages introduction (Chapter 1) to finding and exploiting your own buffer overflows (Chapter 14). But don't let the pace derail your learning. If you missed something, you can probably pick it up as you go along.

The first two sections are focused to give the reader a preliminary and then more intermediate introduction into the world of the web. In "E-Commerce Playground" we show you how the web works, its languages, applications, databases, protocols, and syntax. In "URLs Unraveled", we delve into the meaning of the URL, what is important to an attacker, how visible code can be helpful to an attacker, and we show you how mapping web sites can be critical to an attacker's repertoire.

In the third section, "How do they do it?" we demystify the art of web hacking, how it is pulled off, and how simple steps at development time can eliminate a significant portion of the threat. This section is bar far the meatier of the sections in terms of information and often provides the greatest clues as to how hackers do what they do. Each chapter provides both a detailed analysis of the hack as well as a countermeasure section at the end which helps prevent the hack.

In the fourth section, "Advanced Web Kung Fu," we discuss some advanced web hacking concepts, methodologies, and tools that simply cannot be missed.

Finally, at the end of the book you will find Appendices that include a listing of common web ports on the Internet, cheat sheets for remote command execution and source code disclosure techniques, among other additions.

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Table of Contents

(NOTE: Each chapter begins with an Introduction and concludes with a Summary.)

Foreword.


Introduction.

I. THE E-COMMERCE PLAYGROUND.

1. Web Languages: The Babylon of the 21st Century.

2. Web and Database Servers.

3. Shopping Carts and Payment Gateways.

4. HTTP and HTTPS: The Hacking Protocols.

5. URL: The Web Hacker's Sword.

II. URLS UNRAVELED.

6. Web: Under (the) Cover.

7. Reading Between the Lines.

8. Site Linkage Analysis.

III. HOW DO THEY DO IT?

9. Cyber Graffiti.

10. E-Shoplifting.

11. Database Access.

12. Java: Remote Command Execution.

13. Impersonation.

14. Buffer Overflows: On-the-Fly.

IV. ADVANCED WEB KUNG FU.

15. Web Hacking: Automated Tools.

16. Worms.

17. Beating the IDS.

Appendix A: Web and Database Port Listing.Appendix B: HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/1.0 Method and Field Definitions.Appendix C: Remote Command Execution Cheat Sheet.Appendix D: Source Code, File, and Directory Disclosure Cheat Sheet.Appendix E: Resources and Links.Appendix F: Web-Related Tools.Index. 0201761769T07312002

Errata

Errata

Corrected Figures