CAPEC-87

Forceful Browsing
High
High
Draft
2014-06-23
00h00 +00:00
2020-12-17
00h00 +00:00
CAPEC Mitre.org
Alerte pour un CAPEC
Stay informed of any changes for a specific CAPEC.
Notifications manage

Descriptions CAPEC

An attacker employs forceful browsing (direct URL entry) to access portions of a website that are otherwise unreachable. Usually, a front controller or similar design pattern is employed to protect access to portions of a web application. Forceful browsing enables an attacker to access information, perform privileged operations and otherwise reach sections of the web application that have been improperly protected.

Informations CAPEC

Execution Flow

1) Explore

[Spider] Using an automated tool, an attacker follows all public links on a web site. They record all the links they find.

Technique
  • Use a spidering tool to follow and record all links.
  • Use a proxy tool to record all links visited during a manual traversal of the web application.
2) Experiment

[Attempt well-known or guessable resource locations] Using an automated tool, an attacker requests a variety of well-known URLs that correspond to administrative, debugging, or other useful internal actions. They record all the positive responses from the server.

Technique
  • Use a spidering tool to follow and record attempts on well-known URLs.
  • Use a proxy tool to record all links visited during a manual traversal of attempts on well-known URLs.
3) Exploit

[Use unauthorized resources] By visiting the unprotected resource, the attacker makes use of unauthorized functionality.

Technique
  • Access unprotected functions and execute them.
4) Exploit

[View unauthorized data] The attacker discovers and views unprotected sensitive data.

Technique
  • Direct request of protected pages that directly access database back-ends. (e.g., list.jsp, accounts.jsp, status.jsp, etc.)

Prerequisites

The forcibly browseable pages or accessible resources must be discoverable and improperly protected.

Skills Required

Forcibly browseable pages can be discovered by using a number of automated tools. Doing the same manually is tedious but by no means difficult.

Resources Required

None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack. A directory listing is helpful, but not a requirement.

Mitigations

Authenticate request to every resource. In addition, every page or resource must ensure that the request it is handling has been made in an authorized context.
Forceful browsing can also be made difficult to a large extent by not hard-coding names of application pages or resources. This way, the attacker cannot figure out, from the application alone, the resources available from the present context.

Related Weaknesses

CWE-ID Weakness Name

CWE-425

 Direct Request ('Forced Browsing')
The web application does not adequately enforce appropriate authorization on all restricted URLs, scripts, or files.

CWE-285

 Improper Authorization
The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.

CWE-693

 Protection Mechanism Failure
The product does not use or incorrectly uses a protection mechanism that provides sufficient defense against directed attacks against the product.

Submission

Name Organization Date Date release
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2014-06-23 +00:00

Modifications

Name Organization Date Comment
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2015-12-07 +00:00 Updated Related_Attack_Patterns
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2017-08-04 +00:00 Updated Related_Attack_Patterns, Resources_Required
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2018-07-31 +00:00 Updated Attack_Phases, Attacker_Skills_or_Knowledge_Required, Typical_Likelihood_of_Exploit
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2020-07-30 +00:00 Updated Example_Instances, Execution_Flow
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2020-12-17 +00:00 Updated Description, Taxonomy_Mappings