21/09/2013

The Hackers Guide To Dismantling IPhone (Part 2)

Introduction

 This post is the second part of the series "The Hackers Guide To Dismantling IPhone" and is going to describe how to perform all types of iPhone network attacks on any iPhone. This post is also going to explain how to set up the testing environment for hacking an iPhone also.The iPhone provides developers with a platform to develop two types of applications.

Web based applications – which uses JavaScript, CSS and HTML-5 technologies Native iOS applications- which are developed using Objective-C and Cocoa touch API. This article mainly covers the pen testing methodology of native iOS applications. However, some of the techniques explained here can also be used with web-based iOS applications.

A simulator does not provide the actual device environment, so all the penetration testing techniques explained in this article are specific to a physical device. iPhone 4 with iOS 5 (maybe iOS6) will be used for the following demonstrations.

To perform pentesting we need to install a few tools on our device. These tools are not approved by Apple. Code signing restrictions in iOS do not allow us to install the required tools on the device. To bypass the code signing restrictions and run our tools we have to JailBreak the iPhone. JailBreaking gives us full access to the device and allows us to run code which is not signed by Apple. After JailBreaking, the required unsigned applications can be downloaded from Cydia.

Setting Up the testing environment

In order to set up a descent testing environment you would have to:

  1. Have at your disposal a wireless network that does not have enabled the wireless isolation feature (wireless isolation does not allow communication between hosts, within the same wireless network). If you use an iDevice to set up your testing network then you are screwed since as far as I know iDevice wireless hotspots (e.g. iPhone tethering etc.) have by default that feature enabled.
  2. You would have to configure the proxy with in your iDevice to traffic through a Web Proxy (for this post I am going to use free version of Burp Proxy v1.5).
From Cydia, download and install the applications listed below:
  • OpenSSH – Allows us to connect to the iPhone remotely over SSH
  • Adv-cmds : Comes with a set of process commands like ps, kill, finger…
  • Sqlite3 : Sqlite database client
  • GNU Debugger: For run time analysis & reverse engineering
  • Syslogd : To view iPhone logs
  • Veency: Allows to view the phone on the workstation with the help of veency client
  • Tcpdump: To capture network traffic on phone
  • com.ericasadun.utlities: plutil to view property list files
  • Grep: For searching
  • Odcctools: otool – object file displaying tool
  • Crackulous: Decrypt iPhone apps
  • Hackulous: To install decrypted apps
iPhone does not give us a terminal to see inside directories. Upon OpenSSH installation on the device, we can connect to the SSH server on the phone from any SSH client (ex:Putty, CyberDuck, WinScp). This gives us flexibility to browse through folders and execute commands on the iPhone. An iPhone has two users by default. One is mobile and the other is a root user. All the applications installed on the phone run with mobile user privileges. But using SSH we can log into the iPhone as a root user, which will give us full access to the device. The default password for both the user accounts (root, mobile) is alpine.

Performing our first Man In The Middle attack

In order for you to start capturing non SSL traffic you would have to change the settings in your iPhone, in order for you to do that you would have to follow the steps below.

Step 1: Go Settings -> WiFi.

Step 2: HTTP Proxy -> Manual.


Step 3: Set the proxy IP equal to the IP that the Burp Proxy is running.


Note: Check out that the Authentication is disabled (we would not want to try to authenticate to our own web proxy).

Step 4: Open Burp -> Proxy Tab



Step 5: Proxy Tab -> Options -> Set the listening IP to the one that is visible to the wireless.



Step 6: Proxy Tab -> Set the proxy to invisible and make sure it is in a running state.



Note: By doing this you will be able to capture all none encrypted traffic. A more realistic scenario would include an ARP poisoning attack first (you should know though that wireless access points nowadays incorporate anti-ARP poisoning countermeasure).  Obviously the counter measures have to be defeated.

HTTPS stripping attacks to SSL traffic

Another type of MITM (Man In The Middle) Attack is in encrypted connections (e.g. connections using SSL/TLS etc.). This attack can be performed after a successful ARP poisoning attack, also this type of attack is obviously much more interesting since, it incorporates sensitive data (e.g. credit cards, user names and passwords etc.). The most "easy" way for performing this attack is by using SSLStrip.

Note: SSLStrip is used to perform HTTPS stripping attacks (presented officially for first time at Black Hat DC 2009). SSLStrip will transparently hijack HTTP traffic on a network. The free Burp Suit Proxy Edition 1.5 version and above supports SSLStrip functionality.

The options shown in the picture below may be used to deliver sslstrip-like attacks:

Step 1: Proxy -> Options -> Response Modification


Note: Obviously you can play around with the response modification menu and see how does the client behave with sslstrip-like attack scenario and also with the remove secure flag from cookies. This type of attack is more of a user-oriented attack than an actual technical attack on SSL. It doesn't break the underlying cryptography or trust model. Another way to perform a Man In The Middle attack would be to use the sslsniff tool created by the same guy that wrote sslstrip (Moxie Marlinspike).

This can be defeated by using the HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS). The threats addressed  by this http flag are:

1. Passive Network Attackers

The HSTS forces SSL, access using end-to-end secure transport (mixed content is allowed without HSTS). It fixes issues that have to do with web sites that only encrypt the login process and not the cookie(s) created during the login process (the secure flag does not protect from mixing encrypted with non encrypted content).

Note: Tools used to perform the attack: firesheep - http://codebutler.com/firesheep/

2. Active Network Attackers

A determined attacker can mount an active attack, either by impersonating a user's  DNS server or, in a wireless network, by spoofing network frames or offering a similarly  named evil twin access point.  If the user is behind a wireless home router, an attacker can attempt to reconfigure the router using default
passwords and other vulnerabilities.  Some sites, such as banks, rely on end-to-end secure transport to protect themselves and their users from such active attackers.  Unfortunately, browsers allow their
users to easily opt out of these protections in order to be usable

Performing ARP Poisoning to your iPhone (not so easy)

The best possible to perform your MITM attack is by using mature and well tested tools such as Ettercap.  Ettercap is a comprehensive suite for man in the middle attacks. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks. It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols and includes many features for network and host analysis.

Step 1: Open a terminal as root and type Ettercap -G then scan for host. In this wireless network the identified hosts are shown below:



Step 2: Alter the traffic in such a way so as to exploit the device. Here is an example ettercap filter that changes on the fly the traffic:

if (ip.proto == TCP && tcp.dst == 80) {
   if (search(DATA.data, "Accept-Encoding")) {
      replace("Accept-Encoding", "Accept-Rubbish!"); 
	  # note: replacement string is same length as original string
      msg("zapped Accept-Encoding!\n");
   }
}
if (ip.proto == TCP && tcp.src == 80) {
   replace("img src=", "img src=\"http://www.irongeek.com/images/jollypwn.png\" ");
   replace("IMG SRC=", "img src=\"http://www.irongeek.com/images/jollypwn.png\" ");
   msg("Filter Ran.\n");
}

The code should be pretty self explanatory. The # symbols are comments. The "if" statement tells the filter to only work on TCP packet from source port 80, in other words coming from a web server. This test may still miss some images, but should get most of them. I'm also not sure about Ettercap's order of operation with AND (&&) and OR (||) statements but this filter largely seems to work (I tried using parentheses to explicitly specify the order of operation with the Boolean operators but this gave me compile errors).  The "replace" function replaces the first parameter string with the second.  Because of the way this string replacement works it will try to mangled image tags and insert the picture we desire into the web page's HTML before it returns it to the victim. The tags may end up looking something like the following:

                <img src="http://www.irongeek.com/images/jollypwn.png" /images/original-image.jpg>

Note: The original image location will still be in the tag, but most web browsers should see it as a useless parameter. The "msg" function just prints to the screen letting us know that the filter has fired off.

Now that we sort of understand the basics of the filter lets compile it. Take the ig.filter source code listed above and paste it into a text file, then compile the filter into a .ef file using the following command:

            etterfilter ig.filter -o ig.ef

Note: This type of attack applies to all type of devices, but now-days is most important for mobile devices.

Performing an attack by setting up a rogue access point 

Airsnarf is a simple rogue wireless access point setup utility designed to demonstrate how a rogue AP can steal usernames and passwords from public wireless hotspots.  Airsnarf was developed and released to demonstrate an inherent vulnerability of public 802.11b hotspots--snarfing usernames and passwords by confusing users with DNS and HTTP redirects from a competing AP.

In response to the threat posed by rogue access points, we've also developed a hot spot defense kit to assist users in detecting wireless attackers. HotSpotDK checks for changes in ESSID, MAC address of the access point, MAC address of the default gateway, and radical signal strength fluctuations. Upon detecting a problem, HotSpotDK notifies the user that an attacker may be on the wireless network. Currently HotSpotDK runs on Mac OS X and Windows XP.

Airsnarf has been tested with (i.e. probably requires) the following:


  • Red Hat Linux 9.0 - http://www.redhat.com/
  • kernel-2.4.20-13.9.HOSTAP.i686.rpm - http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~baera/redhat_hostap/
  • iptables - Red Hat 9.0 CD 1
  • httpd - Red Hat 9.0 CD 1
  • dhcp - Red Hat 9.0 CD 2
  • sendmail - Red Hat 9.0 CD 1
  • Net::DNS Perl module - http://www.cpan.org/


Install & run Airsnarf with the following commands:

tar zxvf airsnarf-0.2.tar.gz
cd ./airsnarf-0.2
./airsnarf

How does it work?  Basically, it's just a shell script that uses the above software to create a competing hotspot complete with a captive portal.  Variables such as local network, gateway, and SSID to assume can be configured within the ./cfg/airsnarf.cfg file.  Optionally, as a command line argument to Airsnarf, you may specify a directory that contains your own airsnarf.cfg, html, and cgi-bin.  Wireless clients that associate to your Airsnarf access point receive an IP, DNS, and gateway from you--just as they would any other hotspot.  Users will have all of their DNS queries resolve to your IP, regardless of their DNS settings, so any website they attempt to visit will bring up the Airsnarf "splash page", requesting a username and password.  The username and password entered  by unsuspecting users will be mailed to root@localhost.  The reason this works is 1) legitimate access points can be impersonated and/or drowned out by rogue access points and 2) users without a means to validate the authenticity of access points will nevertheless give up their hotspot credentials when asked for them.

So what's the big deal?  Well, with a setup like Airsnarf one can obviously create a "replica website" of many popular, nationally recognized, "pay to play" hotspots.  That's as simple as replacing the index.html file Airsnarf uses with your own custom webpage that still points its form field variables to the airsnarf.cgi.  Combined with sitting at or near a real hotspot, hotspot users will associate and unknowingly give out their username and password for the hotspot provider's network.  The usernames and passwords can then be misused at will to utilize other hotspots of the same provider, possibly anywhere in the nation, leaving the original duped user to pay the bill.  Should the user be charged per minute usage, they may recognize something is terribly wrong when they get their next bill.  If the user pays a flat rate for unlimited usage, the user may never realize their credentials have been captured and are being misused.


Wireless hotspot operators should consider the following:  stronger authentication mechanisms, one-time authentication setups, monitoring the existence and creation of APs, and perhaps just giving away hotspot access for free to remove any user service theft risks.

To Be Continued...

References:
  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_security
  2. http://www.kimiushida.com/bitsandpieces/articles/attacking_ssl_with_sslsniff_and_null_prefixes/index.html 
  3. http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/sslsniff/ 
  4. http://monkey.org/~dugsong/dsniff/ 
  5. http://ettercap.github.com/ettercap/
  6. http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/ettercapfilter
  7. http://codebutler.com/firesheep/
  8. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6797#section-2.3.1
  9. http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/pentesting-iphone-applications/ 
  10. http://airsnarf.shmoo.com/

09/03/2013

The Hackers Guide To Dismantling IPhone (Part 1)



Introduction

Hello everybody, it has been a while since I made a post, but this time is going to be a really long long post (that is why I am going to brake it in many parts). Lately my interest has significantly increased as far as the iOS platform is concerned.  The iOS is becoming more and more popular among the financial business sector companies so it came for me the time to expand my knowledge on IPhone devices. Plus since the complete industrialization of hacking (mostly because of the Chinese government, unit something is doing a good job) nowadays knowledge in iOS platforms is critical (they pay good money for iHacking). This post is going to include only hardening information and explain what the security measures are to block exploits and prevent buffer overflows etc. The second post is going to include network attacks and the third post is going to include attacks in the data of an iDevice.


Note: iOS the most advanced OS for mobile devices ever created (just kidding, I love Apple).

This blog post is going to focus on how to perform a complete penetration test on an iOS application, no time is going to be wasted on how to pentest the server component since the threat land scape is almost identical to that of a Web Application or a Web Service, and since you read my blog (if you don't start doing it) you should know by now that I covered most types of attacks for Web Applications and Web Services so far.

The iOS history

Since the release of the original iPhone in 2007, Apple has engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with hackers to secure their suite of devices for what has grown to nearly 100 million end users. Over this time, many improvements have been made to the security of the iOS, and the stakes have been raised by their introduction into circles with far greater security requirements.

What iOS is

iOS is Apple's mobile operating system, which is derived from Mac OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix-like operating system. Being developed originally for the iPhone, it then has been used on the iPod Touch, iPad and Apple TV as well. So in this article the iOS term specifically refers to the mini-operation system that run on all the iDevices (iPhone, iPod, iPad and Apple TV. In this little apple operation system, there are four abstraction layers: the Core OS layer, the Core Services layer, the Media layer, and the Cocoa Touch layer, which in total will roughly use 500 megabytes of the devices storage.


Note: The Core OS layer is written in C, while the higher layers that runs all interesting applications is written in Objective-C. The higher layer is the most interesting as far as the attacks are concerned.

For security and commercial reasons and considerations, Apple does not permit the OS to run on third- party hardware and also has a limitation on the usage of iOS on these iDevices. Therefore iOS has been subject to a variety of different hacking methods focusing on attaching functionality not supported by Apple. This hacking procedure is called iOS Jailbreak.

The iOS security architecture

While Apple was designing iOS operating system decided to increase the security by using various "tricks", (obviously iOS is based on the same core technologies as OS X) to reduce the attack surface. The attack surface is the code that processes attacker supplied input (e.g. SMS messages, Safari Web Pages etc.).  One of the many ways it did that was by not including various software packages in iOS (e.g. Java and Flash are unavailable). This automatically translates to iOS not processing Java and Flash input (Java and Flash have a history of security vulnerabilities). Another trick that Apple did to reduce the attack surface was to striped off part the functionality provided by the default software that comes installed with the iOS (e.g. Mobile Safari does not support some Adobe features).  Also the iOS OS was also stripped off from many applications compared to OS X e.g. the /bin/sh software is not included in iOS, which translates that if you write an exploit for iOS you would have to implant your own shell to your exploit, which means that your exploit would have to increase its size etc.

More on iOS security

Some of the core security features referenced per layer are: 
  • System architecture: The secure platform and hardware foundations of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
  • Encryption and Data Protection: The architecture and design that protects the user’s data when the device is lost or stolen, or when an unauthorized person attempts to use or modify it.
  • Network security: Industry-standard networking protocols that provide secure authentication and encryption of data in transmission.
  • Device access: Methods that prevent unauthorized use of the device and enable it to be remotely wiped if lost or stolen.
Layered security mechanisms allow for the validation of activities across all layers of the device. From initial boot-up to iOS software installation and through to third-party apps, each step is analyzed and vetted to ensure that each activity is trusted and uses resources properly.

The following picture shows the security model of iOS, as described from above:


Note: Check out that the Apple root certificate installed in the iDevice ROM. Also that iDevices contain their own hardware crypto engines (impressive ee?). Once the system is running, this integrated security architecture depends on the integrity and trustworthiness of XNU (the iOS kernel). XNU enforces security features at run-time and is essential to being able to trust higher-level functions and apps.

More More on iOS security

Apple takes security very seriously and this is obvious from the security controls that are enforced during the execution of third party applications and iOS default pre-installed applications. The security controls explained here is required knowledge to understand how to pentest an iDevice and to later on set the threat landscape. The iOS OS basically enforces Mandatory Access Control (MAC) using the  security controls explained below.

The security controls enforced are listed below:

Least Privilege Principle: System files and resources are also shielded from the user’s apps. The majority of iOS runs as the non-privileged user "mobile", as do all third-party apps. The entire OS partition is mounted read-only. Unnecessary tools, such as remote login services, aren’t included in the system software, and APIs do not allow apps to escalate their own privileges to modify other apps or iOS itself.

Access by third-party apps to user information and features such as iCloud is controlled using declared entitlements. Entitlements are key/value pairs that are signed in to an app and allow authentication beyond run-time factors like unix user ID. Since entitlements are digitally signed, they cannot be changed. Entitlements are used extensively by system apps and daemons to perform specific privileged operations that would otherwise require the process to run as root. This greatly reduces the potential for privilege escalation by a compromised system application or daemon. 

Code Signing: To ensure that all apps come from a known and approved source and have not been tampered with, iOS requires that all executable code be signed using an Apple-issued certificate. Now given that individual developers need to test out their applications on iDevices and enterprises need to distribute apps just to their devices, there is a need to run apps without being signed by Apple. The method to allow this is called provisioning. An individual developer, a company, an enterprise or a university may sign up for one or more of the programs offered by Apple for this reason, in order to enable signing their code.

As part of the program, each developer generates a certificate request for a development and a distribution certificate from a set of private keys generated locally (e.g. by using openssl or a local certificate authority etc.). Apple then replies back with these two certificates. For more information see iOS developer program link.

Through the iOS developer portal then you can generate a provisioning profile. A provisioning profile is nothing more than a .plist file signed by Apple. The .plist file all is doing is list certificates, devices and entitlements (entitlement are configuration files describing what an app is allowed and not allowed to do). When this provisioning profile is installed (e,g, through the IPhone Configuration Utility or a third party Mobile Device Management software). 

The  developer provisioning profile can be used only for 100 devices (the devices listed have to be specific), while the enterprise provisioning does not have that limitation. Essentially provisioning adds accountability to all the apps that are allowed to be installed to an iDevice. 

The following screenshot shows the IPhone Configuration Utility:


Note:  This is obviously is not a signed profile, configured locally from my IPhone Configuration Utility.

The following picture show an enterprise configuration installed and how it shows through the iPhone configuration:


Note: See how the certificate show in the screenshot. This demonstrates the BOMGAR MDM software, that enforces a custom configuration profile.

Sand-boxing: All third-party apps are "sandboxed", so they are restricted from accessing files stored by other apps or from making changes to the device. This prevents apps from gathering or modifying information stored by other apps. Each app has a unique home directory for its files, which is randomly assigned when the app is installed. If a third-party app needs to access information other than its own, it does so only by using application programming interfaces (APIs) and services provided by iOS. The downside of this security model is that same rules apply for all apps (a third party app is not allowed to have more restrictive rules than another).  

Address space layout randomization (ASLR): ASLR protects against the exploitation of memory corruption bugs. Built-in apps use ASLR to ensure that all memory regions are randomized upon launch. Additionally, system shared library locations are randomized at each device start-up. Xcode, the iOS development environment, automatically compiles third-party programs with ASLR support turned on.

NX Flag:  Further protection is provided by iOS using ARM’s Execute Never (XN) feature, which marks memory pages as non-executable. Memory pages marked as both writable and executable can be used only by apps under tightly controlled conditions: The kernel checks for the presence of the Apple-only “dynamic-codesigning” entitlement. Even then, only a single mmap call can be made to request an executable and writable page, which is given a randomized address. Safari uses this functionality for its JavaScript JIT compiler.

Jailbreaking your iOS

Jailbreaking is a process that allows these iDevices users to gain the infamous root access to the command line of the iOS operating system, in order to remove usage and access limitations imposed by Apple. Once jailbroken, iPhone users are able to download extensions and themes that are unavailable through the App Store (via installers such as Cydia) and perform other tasks that are not possible on store-bought devices, including installing non-Apple operating systems such as Linux, running multi-task on old version of iDevices (the new Generation of store-bought devices includes this function). Through the authentication server developed by Aurik (a Ph.d student from UCSB) built up to sign old firmware of iOS, Cydia creator Jay Freeman estimates that over 10% of all iPhones are jailbroken.

Tools you can use for jailbreaking your iPhone are listed alphabetically below (found in theiphonewiki.com):

A
    •    Absinthe
B
    •    Blackra1n
C
    •    Corona
D
    •    Dual Boot Exploit
E
    •    Evasi0n
G
    •    Greenpois0n (jailbreak)
I
    •    IBrickr
    •    ILiberty+
    •    INdependence
J
    •    JailbreakMe
L
    •    Limera1n
M
    •    Mknod
P
    •    Pwnage
    •    PwnageTool
R
    •    Ramdisk Hack
    •    Redsn0w
    •    Redsn0w Lite
    •    Restore Mode
S
    •    Seas0nPass
    •    Sn0wbreeze
    •    Soft Upgrade
    •    Spirit
    •    Star
    •    Symlinks
Z
    •    ZiPhone

Note1: This tutorial was written on 09/March/2013 so an update by performing a research is also required.

Note2: The real question here is do you need to jailbreak your iDevice to pentest it?  The answer is it depends, for example if the app you are testing has anti-jailbreaking countermeasures then maybe no, if the app you are testing has no anti-jailbreaking countermeasures then definitely yes. Jailbreak the the testing target iPhone is must when applicable.

Settings the threat landscape for iOS

What most iOS developers/security consultants do not understand is the threat landscape that is currently associated with the iOS platforms is not clearly defined in their minds, some of them do not even have a clue what is that it should be taken into consideration when performing a Security Assurance, Risk Assessment or Penetration Test to iOS related platform. An iDevice should be treated the thick client on steroids. The features provide from an iOS device are amazing and very rich.

A good source that can be used as a starting point for developing a threat model for iOS should be the OWASP Mobile Security Project found here. The Top 10 Mobile Risks, Release Candidate v1.0 covers pretty much all risks that are associated with an iOS device. The following picture summarizes all risks identified: 


 Note: Risk M2, M5 and M6 are mostly server side related and I am not going to focus on these issue a lot.

Risk M1, M4, M8, M7, M9 and M10 are the most interesting of all the issue and I am going to spend a lot of time analyzing these issues. But before we do that it would be wise to focus a little in the type of interaction an iDevice has with the server component.  Given the nature of the iOS based devices, and their willingness to blindly accept new configuration, hijacking both cellular traffic and WiFi traffic can usually be performed much more easily than a similar attack to a desktop machine. It is so easy, in fact that, that a device's traffic can be hijacked without even compromising the device itself. There are a number of ways to intercept network traffic across local networks; dozens of articles have been written on the subject.  

The following picture shows a typical Web Server iPhone interaction:


Note: This is a simple Web Server, iPhone interaction.

The following pictures shows a typical attack scenarios that can be implemented very easily by exploiting the iPhone configuration of blindly accepting any wireless access points.


The following pictures shows a typical Man In The Middle attack scenarios that can be implemented again very easily due to the nature of the mobile (which by the way are mobile).



Note: The types of attacks that can be performed using the methodology of a rouge access point or the Man In The Middle attack scenarios are going to be explained in the next post.

Epilogue

This article covered the threat land scape for iDevices, which is identical for all mobile devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, iTouch, iPad mini, Android devices etc.). The next part is going to cover Internet/Wireless attacks and the third is going to cover iDevice data attacks (e.g. attacking unencrypted and encrypted attacks). There might be though a fourth part that sums up all attack patterns together.   

See part 2 

Reference:
  1. Hacking and Securing iOS Applications (1st Edition).
  2. iOS Hacker's Handbook 
  3. http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Main_Page
  4. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CFgQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcafee.com%2Fuk%2Fresources%2Fwhite-papers%2Ffoundstone%2Fwp-pen-testing-iphone-ipad-apps.pdf&ei=Qao3UdfuIsi0PN_igZgL&usg=AFQjCNEcgkmrLlHGnZAbIqsMAUZo7AV40Q&sig2=SVQsXTDllnOzoSiE0b9xnQ&bvm=bv.43287494,d.ZWU&cad=rja
  5. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEEQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Freverse.put.as%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F06%2Fios_jailbreak_analysis.pdf&ei=Lq03UbeEG4vTPICwgZAF&usg=AFQjCNFEFYQasjKS015rXOIscZcD7gt0SQ&sig2=b9zMPuqnxltdEjscnBw9kA&bvm=bv.43287494,d.d2k&cad=rja
  6. http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=uXJZS5Ygd8EA2M&tbnid=bBuu1xIxavm7BM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Finstitute.mobileappmastery.com%2Fiostrainingpack%2Fios-training-pack-orientation%2F&ei=f_c4Ueq4GMbM0AXHwIH4CA&psig=AFQjCNGXxNtGeXVosrZpTPL02jXebHN5KA&ust=1362774242464377 
  7. http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Working_with_iOS_6_iPhone_Databases_using_Core_Data 
  8. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Mobile_Security_Project
  9. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.apple.com%2Fipad%2Fbusiness%2Fdocs%2FiOS_Security_May12.pdf&ei=E407UZH6Io2o0AXp1oDoDA&usg=AFQjCNEEEm92vnkqK28D_y3D60VtJiYOTg&sig2=go27HN00qxc7oZ3cXgFecw&bvm=bv.43287494,d.d2k&cad=rja 
  10. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808 
  11. https://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/ 

26/12/2012

CSRFing the Web...

Introduction

Nowadays hacking, as already mentioned in my previous articles, has been industrialized, meaning that professional hackers are constantly hired to make money out of practically anything and therefore all Web Application vulnerabilities have to be understood and defeated.

This article is going to talk about what Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is, explain how can someone perform a successful CSRF attack and describe how to amplify a CSRF attack (e.g. combine CSRF with other vulnerabilities). CSRF is an attack which forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which he/she is currently authenticated (simplistically speaking). With a little help from social engineering (like sending a link via email/chat), an attacker may force the users of a web application to execute actions of the attacker's choosing.

A successful CSRF exploit can compromise end user data and operation in case of a normal user. If the targeted end user is the administrator account, this can compromise the entire web application. More specifically CSRF is a Web Application vulnerability that has to exploit more than one design flaws in order to be successful. The design flaws that a CSRF attack can take advantage of are:
  1. Input Validation (e.g. Convert POST to GET) 
  2. Access Control (e.g. Session Fixation) 
  3. Privilege Assignment (e.g. Horizontal Privilege Escalation)
Note: Of course depending on the situation other type of vulnerabilities can be combined with a CSRF as part of a post exploitation process such as SQL Injection (e.g. SQL Inject the cookie and get access to valid cookie repository in the database).

History of CSRF

CSRF vulnerabilities have been known and in some cases exploited since 2001. Because it is carried out from the user's IP address, some website logs might not have evidence of CSRF. Exploits are under-reported, at least publicly, and as of 2007 there are few well-documented examples. About 18 million users of eBay's Internet Auction Co. at Auction.co.kr in Korea lost personal information in February 2008. Customers of a bank in Mexico were attacked in early 2008 with an image tag in email. The link in the image tag changed the DNS entry for the bank in their ADSL router to point to a malicious website impersonating the bank.

Severity of CSRF

According to the United States Department Of Homeland Security the most dangerous CSRF vulnerability ranks in at the 909th most dangerous software bug ever found. Other severity metrics have been issued for CSRF vulnerabilities that result in remote code execution with root privileges as well as a vulnerability that can compromise a root certificate, which will completely undermine a public key infrastructure.

But what exactly is a CSRF

CSRF is a form of confused deputy attack. Imagine you’re a malcontent who wants to harm another person in a maximum security jail. You’re probably going to have a tough time reaching that person due to your lack of proper credentials. A potentially easier approach to accomplish your misdeed is to confuse a deputy to misuse his authority to commit the dastardly act on your behalf. That’s a much more effective strategy for causing mayhem.

In the case of a CSRF attack, the confused deputy is your browser. After logging into a website, the website will issue your browser an authentication token within a cookie (well not always). Within each subsequent http POST or GET requests send, the cookie bind to the request will let the site know that you are authorized to take whatever action you’re taking. Here I am referring to a typical authentication and authorization scheme that most Web Application use.

Suppose you visit a malicious website soon after visiting your bank website or visit another website while being logged to your bank web account. Your session on the previous site might still be valid (btw please de-validate session before closing the browser). Thus, visiting a carefully crafted malicious website (perhaps you clicked on a spam link) could cause an Html form post to the previous website. Your browser would send the authentication cookie back to that site and appear to be making a request on your behalf, even though you did not intend to do so.

Yes but what is a CSRF

A CSRF is a POST or GET http request that when send to the vulnerable Web Application under certain conditions can cause the Web Application to perform an action on behalf of the user. Now meaningful CSRF attacks are those that can cause loss of Integrity or Confidentiality or Availability of the victim user data. For example if an e-Banking Web site is vulnerable to CSRF and the function of the Web Site that is vulnerable is responsible for transferring money, then this is a CSRF with high severity and should be fixed.

This is an example of a simple CSRF:

http://www.vulnerable.com/?transferEuros=3000?maliciousUserAccount=9832487   

Note: The link displayed above when clicked can authorize a malicious user to transfer 3000 euros from of the victim user account to the malicious user account with id 9832487, assuming of course that no proper counter measures have been taken.

The following diagram shows how can this happen more analytically:   




Note: The diagram above shows the steps an attacker can take to exploit the vulnerability (step 4 designtes the execution of the CSRF payload that performs the malicious action). It is pretty much similar to a Cross Site Script attack scenario. An attacker sends an e-mail to an Html enabled e-mail client that contains some sample images deliberately uploaded to a malicious server (controlled by the attacker), along with the malicious URL (or a malicious html form) that performs the CSRF function, waits until the user opens the e-mail and downloads the images or sets his/her e-mail to receive a notification when the victim user reads his/her e-mail. Thens he/she waits infront of the logs of the malicious image server or waits to receive a read e-mail receipt in his/her mailbox. After the image is downloaded or the read receipt is received he/she will try to verify that the malicious function was executed. Another scenario would be to calculate what times user interact with the web site and calculate the attack times before sending the malicious URL/Html form.

The diagram above explains that the CSRF (meaning the vulnerable link described previously) can be injected into an HTML enabled e-mail and be executed by a legitimate user. Now if the link (or else the CSRF vulnerable link) is bind to the Web Application session (which it should be) then the victim user would have to be logged to the vulnerable Web Application for the attack to be successful. If the link is not bind to the Web Application session then the this is not a CSRF vulnerability, is an Insecure Direct Object References vulnerability or Failure to Restrict URL Access also described by OWASP top 10 chart. Both vulnerabilities have to do with inappropriate access control and are completely irrelevant to CSRF or CSRF like vulnerabilities.

Now that you got a better grasp of what a CSRF attack is I can be more technical and explain more on how a CSRF attack look like by using http requests. So again the link described above looks as a Http request like that:

GET /homepage/transferEuros=3000?maliciousUserAccount=9832487 HTTP/1.1
Host: victim.com
Keep-Alive: timeout=15
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: Authentication-Token
Accept: */*

Note: The vulnerable link when clicked will generate the GET request shown above and will, if it is successful, generate a 200 Http response message saying that the transaction was completed successfully.

Explaining more what a CSRF is

The following diagram shows thoroughly how a CSRF can be exploited:



Step 1: Mallory sends a phishing email to Bob, inviting him to visit her web server in order, for example, to win an iPhone 5. She has already created a web page at her web server with a hidden request to the Web Application where Bob is logged in. She has added some buttons to lure the victim in order to click on her page and win the iPhone!

Step 2: Bob visits the page at Mallory's Web server. Maybe he is greedy or he may not, however he clicks on the button in order to win the iPhone!...

Step 3: The forged request is "legitimized" with Bob's logged-in session and is executed at the web application.

A real-world analogy would be the following: Mallory presented a bank cheque to Bob and Bob puts under his name and signature, but haven't examined what sum of money is written on the cheque.In the following attack scenario, we can see how a malicious user can add a user to a web application just by fooling a logged-in administrator to click on a link.

A different approach to CSRF

Now that I explained a simple CSRF attack it is time to explain a more advanced scenario on how to exploit a CSRF. A CSRF most of the time is not easily recognizable and that is why lots of people cannot identify a CSRF unless it is really obvious, just like the one I just described. A CSRF issue raises when:
  1. A Web Application performs critical functions using GET Http requests (e.g. to transfer money, add users by just clicking a link etc).
  2. Does not distinguish between POST and GET requests (e.g. a Html form can be easily converted into a GET request, meaning that a Html POST request can be converted to a link etc). 
  3. Has a loose association or else not tight access control (e.g. does not use AntiCSRF tokens, is vulnerable to session fixation e.t.c).
  4. Is vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (e.g. someone can use JavaScript to formate a valid Html POST form by using the XMLHTTP object along with an auto submit script etc). 
  5. The application is passing the session to the URL along with the AntiCSRF token.
  6. The session can be fixated and the AntiCSRF token is predictable or static.
Note: There are a lot more ways to perform a CSRF attack, but there are out of scope.

CSRF and POST to GET Interchange

It is common knowledge that when the Web Application does not distinguish between POST and GET requests an attacker can convert a POST Http request to a GET Http request and generate a link equivalent to the one described previously. Burp Suite does that automatically that from the proxy tab by right clicking the request and doing a change method (it also recalculates the Http request size in the content size field).

The attack just described is can be enhanced by using an auto submit script such as this one:

"JavaScript"> setTimeout('document.CSRFHtmlForm.submit()',5000);

Note: A very useful tool is the CSRF PoC tool also found in Burp Suite. Burp Suit CSRF PoC will generate a quick CSRF PoC for you (most of the time you would have to modify that to be realistic).

CSRF and Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks are a type of injection problem, in which malicious scripts are injected into the otherwise benign and trusted web sites. Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks occur when an attacker uses a web application to send malicious code, generally in the form of a browser side script, to a different end user. Flaws that allow these attacks to succeed are quite widespread and occur anywhere a web application uses input from a user in the output it generates without validating or encoding it.

An attacker can use XSS to send a malicious script to an unsuspecting user. The end user’s browser has no way to know that the script should not be trusted, and will execute the script. Because it thinks the script came from a trusted source, the malicious script can access any cookies, session tokens, or other sensitive information retained by your browser and used with that site. These scripts can even rewrite the content of the HTML page. But can also inject an Html form with an auto submit script to execute the malicious CSRF. The example is very easy to understand so I wont have to give an example.

Note1: You can see how an XSS vulnerability can be combined with a CSRF  attack at the CSRF tool section (e.g. by injection also the auto submit javascript code along with the CSRF).

Note2: Of course an XSS can be combined with a CSRF attack using the XMLHTTP and auto submit javascript features. A very good XSS (XMLHTTP)/CSRF example can be found here. The specific post explains an XSS/CSRF bug found in gmail.

CSRF and Session Fixation

Session Fixation is an attack that permits an attacker to hijack a valid user session. The attack explores a limitation in the way the web application manages the session ID, more specifically the vulnerable web application. When authenticating a user, it doesn’t assign a new session ID, making it possible to use an existent session ID. The attack consists of inducing a user to authenticate himself with a known session ID, and then hijacking the user-validated session by the knowledge of the used session ID. The attacker has to provide a legitimate Web application session ID and try to make the victim's browser use it.

The session fixation attack is a class of Session Hijacking, which steals the established session between the client and the Web Server after the user logs in. Instead, the Session Fixation attack fixes an established session on the victim's browser, so the attack starts before the user logs in. There are several techniques to execute the attack; it depends on how the Web application deals with session tokens. Below are some of the most common technique:
  • Session token in the URL argument: The Session ID is sent to the victim in a hyperlink and the victim accesses the site through the malicious URL.
  • Session token in a hidden form field: In this method, the victim must be tricked to authenticate in the target Web Server, using a login form developed for the attacker. The form could be hosted in the evil web server or directly in html formatted e-mail.
  • Session ID in a cookie:
    • Client-side script:
      • Most browsers support the execution of client-side scripting. In this case, the aggressor could use attacks of code injection as the XSS (Cross-site scripting) attack to insert a malicious code in the hyperlink sent to the victim and fix a Session ID in its cookie. Using the function document.cookie, the browser which executes the command becomes capable of fixing values inside of the cookie that it will use to keep a session between the client and the Web Applicatio
    • <META> tag:
      • <META> tag also is considered a code injection attack, however, different from the XSS attack where undesirable scripts can be disabled, or the execution can be denied. The attack using this method becomes much more efficient because it's impossible to disable the processing of these tags in the browsers.
After describing the Session Fixation attack I will explain the attack scenario described in the picture using new chain of vulnerabilities (e.g. Session Fixation -> CSRF). An attacker sends an e-mail to an Html enabled e-mail client that contains some sample images uploaded to a malicious server, along with the malicious URL that performs the CSRF function and this time is bind to the fixed session (by using one or more of the techniques described above), waits until the user opens the e-mail and downloads the images or sets his/her e-mail to receive a notification when the victim user reads his/her e-mail. Thens he/she waits the logs of the malicious image server to be updated or waits to receive a read e-mail receipt in his/her mailbox. After the image is downloaded (and he/she sees that from e.g. /www/var/apache.logs etc) or the read receipt is received he/she will try to verify that the malicious function was executed.

The link with the fixated token will produce a GET Http request that looks like this:

GET /homepage/transferEuros=3000?maliciousUserAccount=9832487 HTTP/1.1
Host: victim.com
Keep-Alive: timeout=15
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: Fixated Session

Note1: Obviously a Session Fixation attack can have devastating results even without the use of CSRF flaw. What I am saying here is that a Session Fixation combined with a CSRF attack amplifies the attack (e.g. the attacker will optimize his/her time attack frame by exploiting a chain of vulnerabilities rather than a single vulnerability).

Note2: Similar exploitation scenarios you can have when the web application does not provide the user with an authentication mechanism e.g. open registration forms used for submitting credit card details.

CSRF and bad architecture design

Although this category might not be exactly a CSRF issue, it is still very similar to a CSRF attack. This type of attack refers to the occasions were no proper random values are generated (based on user credentials) or values that are generated but do not have a session like behavior e.g. lack of authorization,  none random CAPTCHA, lack of entity authentication etc. By integrating this type of behavior to your application you endanger the application to became victim to multiple type of attacks.   

CSRF and Clickjaking

Clickjacking, also known as a "UI redress attack", happens is when an attacker uses multiple transparent or opaque layers to trick a user into clicking on a button or link on another page when they were intending to click on the the top level page. Thus, the attacker is "hijacking" clicks meant for their page and routing them to other another page, most likely owned by another application, domain, or both. Using a similar technique, keystrokes can also be hijacked. With a carefully crafted combination of stylesheets, iframes, and text boxes, a user can be led to believe they are typing in the password to their email or bank account, but are instead typing into an invisible frame controlled by the attacker.

For example, imagine an attacker who builds a web site that has a button on it that says "click here for a free iPod". However, on top of that web page, the attacker has loaded an iframe with your vulnerable e-banking account, and lined up exactly the "transfer money" button directly on top of the "free iPod" button. The victim tries to click on the "free iPod" button but instead actually clicked on the invisible "transfer money" button. In essence, the attacker has "hijacked" the user's click, hence the name "Clickjacking". Again the attack scenario would be the similar to the ones just described above so there is no need for me to modify and explain again the attack scenarion. What is interesting though would be to show you an iframe that performs a CSRF attack.

Well an iframe that performs a CSRF attack would look something like that:

<iframe src="http://www.victim.com/homepage/transferEuros=3000?maliciousUserAccount=9832487">

Note: You can see how beautiful this attack is and how simple and smooth can be implemented.

CSRF and Exposed Session Variables

By simply passing the session or other session variables in the URL e.g. such the AntiCSRF token, means asking for trouble. The Session Tokens (Cookie, SessionID, Hidden Field), if exposed, will usually enable an attacker to impersonate a victim and access the application illegitimately. As such, it is important that they are protected from eavesdropping at all times – particularly whilst in transit between the Client browser and the application servers.

The information here relates to how transport security applies to the transfer of sensitive Session ID data rather than data in general, and may be stricter than the caching and transport policies applied to the data served by the site. Using a personal proxy, it is possible to ascertain the following about each request and response:
  • Protocol used (e.g., HTTP vs. HTTPS)
  • HTTP Headers
  • Message Body (e.g., POST or page content)
Each time Session ID data is passed between the client and the server, the protocol, cache, and privacy directives and body should be examined. Transport security here refers to Session IDs passed in GET or POST requests, message bodies, or other means over valid HTTP requests. As you already understand stealing the Session ID and/or the AntiCSRF token might result in the attacker being able to form links such as the following one:

http://www.vulnerable.com/?sessionid=ligdlgkjdng?anticsrftoken=kjnsdldfksjdnk?transferEuros=3000?maliciousUserAccount=9832487   

Note: The above information can be used to generate a link for a malicious user.

The attack scenario?

For my demo I choose multidae vulnerable web application which can be found on OWASP's Vulnerable Apps VM, an intercepting proxy tool (I used Portswigger's Burp Proxy, however it is not essential, just a "View Source" from any browser can work on most cases) and an Apache web server.

In the following picture you can see the main page of Multidae's web application as it can be browsed by any -non authenticated- user.




In this web application any user can register an account, but our goal is to register the account with the administrator's privileges. Below is the "register user" page that any, unauthenticated user can see.




If we view the source of the "Register Account" page, we can identify the forms (and therefore the POST request) that are being sent to the web application. That data are then processed by the application and the user is created.


Now, the attacker can create his own form at his web server and populate the HTML fields with the data of the user he wants to create on the system. (Note: no code expertise is needed in order to create this HTML page!). The following picture, you can see the HTML page that creates on his web server. He creates a user named "andrew", with password "qwerty".


Now he launches the web server (192.168.200.14) hosting this page. At this point, he needs the user's interaction. This could be accomplished, for example, by a phishing attack scenario: the victim receives an email inviting the victim to visit the attacker's page saying "click here to win an iPhone 5", or he could attach this message this "iPhone 5 message" at the page he created!

Just imagine:



And this is how it will appear on the victim's web browser:


The victim, which is at the same time logged in with this account at Multidae web application, is now tricked to click on the button and submit a register user form with the username and password set by the attacker.

 Now user "andrew" can log in with the password set during the CSRF request.


At point the CSRF attack scenario is completed. We sucessfuly managed to exploit a CSRF vulnerability and add a user to the vulnerable web application.

The CASE studies for CSRF

This site here contains many popular web sites that were vulnerable to CSRF attacks. An interesting extract from the article can be found here:

"1. ING Direct (ingdirect.com)
Status: Fixed
We found a vulnerability on ING’s website that allowed additional accounts to be created on behalf of an arbitrary user. We were also able to transfer funds out of users’ bank accounts. We believe this is the first CSRF vulnerability to allow the transfer of funds from a financial institution. Specific details are described in our paper.
2. YouTube (youtube.com)
Status: Fixed
We discovered CSRF vulnerabilities in nearly every action a user could perform on YouTube. An attacker could have added videos to a user’s "Favorites," added himself to a user’s "Friend" or "Family" list, sent arbitrary messages on the user’s behalf, flagged videos as inappropriate, automatically shared a video with a user’s contacts, subscribed a user to a "channel" (a set of videos published by one person or group) and added videos to a user’s "QuickList" (a list of videos a user intends to watch at a later point). Specific details are described in our paper.
3. MetaFilter (metafilter.com)
Status: Fixed
A vulnerability existed on Metafilter that allowed an attacker to take control of a user’s account. A forged request could be used to set a user’s email address to the attacker’s address. A second forged request could then be used to activate the "Forgot Password" action, which would send the user’s password to the attacker’s email address. Specific details are described in our paper.
(MetaFilter fixed this vulnerability in less than two days. We appreciate the fact that MetaFilter contacted us to let us know the problem had been fixed.)
4. The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Status: Not Fixed. We contacted the New York Times in September, 2007As of September 24, 2008, this vulnerability still exists. This problem has been fixed."

Note: You can see from the above extract that CSRF issues are very popular these days.

Tools for CSRFing the Web

The Burp Proxy tool (the Pro version of course) can be used to generate a proof-of-concept (PoC) cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attack for a given request.To access this function, select a URL or HTTP request anywhere within Burp, and choose "Generate CSRF PoC" within "Engagement tools" in the context menu.

When you execute this function, Burp shows the full request you selected in the top panel, and the generated CSRF HTML in the lower panel. The HTML uses a form with a suitable action URL, encoding type and parameters, to generate the required request when the browser submits the form.You can edit the request manually, and click the "Regenerate" button to regenerate the CSRF HTML based on the updated request.

You can test the effectiveness of the generated PoC in your browser, using the "Test in browser" button. When you select this option, Burp gives you a unique URL that you can paste into your browser (configured to use the current instance of Burp as its proxy). The resulting browser request is served by Burp with the currently displayed HTML, and you can then determine whether the PoC is effective by monitoring the resulting request(s) that are made through the Proxy.Some points should be noted regarding form encoding:

    •    Some requests (e.g. those containing raw XML or JSON) have bodies that can only be generated using a form with plain text encoding. With each type of form submission using the POST method, the browser will include a Content-Type header indicating the encoding type of the form that generated the request. In some cases, although the message body exactly matches that required for the attack request, the application may reject the request due to an unexpected Content-Type header. Such CSRF-like conditions might not be practically exploitable. Burp will display a warning in the CSRF PoC generator if this is liable to occur.

    •    If you manually select a form encoding type that cannot be used to produce the required request, Burp will generate a best effort at a PoC and will display a warning.

    •    If the CSRF PoC generator is using plain text encoding, then the request body must contain an equals character in order for Burp to generate an HTML form which results in that exact body. If the original request does not contain an equals character, then you may be able to introduce one into a suitable position in the request, without affecting the server's processing of it.

CSRF PoC Options

The following options are available:

    •    Include auto-submit script - Using this option causes Burp to include a small script in the HTML that causes a JavaScript-enabled browser to automatically submit the form (causing the CSRF request) when the page is loaded.

    •    Form encoding - This option lets you specify the type of encoding to use in the form that generates the CSRF request. The "Auto" option is generally preferred, and causes Burp to select the most appropriate encoding capable of generating the required request. 

The following picture shows a screen shot from Burp CSRF PoC tool while doing right click on an intercepted request:


The following picture shows the generated CSRF PoC:


Note: Right click the intercepted Http GET or POST request and click CSRF PoC. It should not be a problem if the web application accepts POST to GET interchanges for obvious reasons.


Prevention Measures That Do NOT Work

Using a Secret Cookie:

Remember that all cookies, even the secret ones, will be submitted with every request. All authentication tokens will be submitted regardless of whether or not the end-user was tricked into submitting the request. Furthermore, session identifiers are simply used by the application container to associate the request with a specific session object. The session identifier does not verify that the end-user intended to submit the request.

Only Accepting POST Requests:

Applications can be developed to only accept POST requests for the execution of business logic. The misconception is that since the attacker cannot construct a malicious link, a CSRF attack cannot be executed. Unfortunately, this logic is incorrect. There are numerous methods in which an attacker can trick a victim into submitting a forged POST request, such as a simple form hosted in an attacker's Website with hidden values. This form can be triggered automatically by JavaScript or can be triggered by the victim who thinks the form will do something else.

Multi-Step Transactions:

Multi-Step transactions are not an adequate prevention of CSRF. As long as an attacker can predict or deduce each step of the completed transaction, then CSRF is possible.

URL Rewriting:


This might be seen as a useful CSRF prevention technique as the attacker can not guess the victim's session ID. However, the user’s credential is exposed over the URL.

CSRF countermeasures 

CSRF attacks are very hard to trace and probably are not traceable unless one the two or more of the following conditions are met:
  1. Detailed Web Application user auditing exists and is enabled.
  2. Concurrent logins are not allowed (allowing concurrent logins would remove none repudiation).
  3. The Web Application binds the Web Application session with the user IP (that way if the user is behind a NAT only users from the same intranet would be able to perform a CSRF attack).
  4. AntiCSRF tokens are used per Web Application function. An AntiCSRF token in order to be effective would have to be:
    • Truly Random.
    • Bind to every Web Application function (different per Web Application function).
    • Behave like a session (e.g. expire after a certain time, expire e.t.c).
    • Use a two factor authentication per token (e.g make of a RSA token to generate the AntiCSRF to perform a transaction etc).
Other technologies for protecting against CSRF

In the web there are numerous references regarding the implementation of anti-CSRF tokens. Some examples can be found here: 
The mentality promoted by the above technologies is abvious, we should deploy a mechanism that would make unique every session initiated by the user. This can be achieved by sending the browser an anti-CSRF token that would be appended in every request the browser sends to the server. The above technique is being explained in more technical terms in OWASP's CSRF Prevention cheat sheet:

"These challenge tokens are the inserted within the HTML forms and links associated with sensitive server-side operations. When the user wishes to invoke these sensitive operations, the HTTP request should include this challenge token. It is then the responsibility of the server application to verify the existence and correctness of this token. By including a challenge token with each request, the developer has a strong control to verify that the user actually intended to submit the desired requests. Inclusion of a required security token in HTTP requests associated with sensitive business functions helps mitigate CSRF attacks as successful exploitation assumes the attacker knows the randomly generated token for the target victim's session. This is analogous to the attacker being able to guess the target victim's session identifier."

Epilogue

This blog post attempted to cover thoroughly the subject of CSRF and I believe that I managed to do that. Now there are obviously a lot more things to say about how to protect against a CSRF but for the purposes of this post is out of scope. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

References:
  1. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_(CSRF)
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery
  3. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Testing_for_Exposed_Session_Variables_(OWASP-SM-004)
  4. http://haacked.com/archive/2009/04/02/anatomy-of-csrf-attack.aspx
  5. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Session_fixation
  6. http://ajaxian.com/archives/gmail-csrf-security-flaw
  7. http://www.portswigger.net/burp/help/suite_functions_csrfpoc.html
  8. https://nealpoole.com/blog/2012/03/csrf-clickjacking-and-the-role-of-x-frame-options/
  9. http://fragilesecurity.blogspot.gr/2012/11/cross-site-request-forgery-legitimazing.html
  10. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_(CSRF)_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet
  11. https://blogs.apache.org/infra/entry/apache_org_04_09_2010
  12. https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/wzeller/popular-websites-vulnerable-cross-site-request-forgery-attacks/
  13. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_(CSRF)_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet#Viewstate_.28ASP.NET.29

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