CWE-565: Reliance on Cookies without Validation and Integrity Checking
Weakness ID: 565
Vulnerability Mapping:ALLOWEDThis CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities Abstraction:
BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.
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Description
The product relies on the existence or values of cookies when performing security-critical operations, but it does not properly ensure that the setting is valid for the associated user.
Common Consequences
This table specifies different individual consequences
associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is
violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an
adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about
how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other
consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be
exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to
achieve a different impact.
Impact
Details
Modify Application Data; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Scope: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability
Attackers can easily modify cookies, within the browser or by implementing the client-side code outside of the browser. Reliance on cookies without detailed validation and integrity checking can allow attackers to bypass authentication, conduct injection attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting, or otherwise modify inputs in unexpected ways.
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
Scope: Access Control
It is dangerous to use cookies to set a user's privileges. The cookie can be manipulated to escalate an attacker's privileges to an administrative level.
Potential Mitigations
Phase(s)
Mitigation
Architecture and Design
Avoid using cookie data for a security-related decision.
Implementation
Perform thorough input validation (i.e.: server side validation) on the cookie data if you're going to use it for a security related decision.
Architecture and Design
Add integrity checks to detect tampering.
Architecture and Design
Protect critical cookies from replay attacks, since cross-site scripting or other attacks may allow attackers to steal a strongly-encrypted cookie that also passes integrity checks. This mitigation applies to cookies that should only be valid during a single transaction or session. By enforcing timeouts, you may limit the scope of an attack. As part of your integrity check, use an unpredictable, server-side value that is not exposed to the client.
Relationships
This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this
weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to
similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition,
relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user
may want to explore.
Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.
Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.
Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.
Relevant to the view "Weaknesses for Simplified Mapping of Published Vulnerabilities" (View-1003)
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.
The different Modes of Introduction provide information
about how and when this
weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which
introduction
may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the
given
phase.
Phase
Note
Architecture and Design
OMISSION: This weakness is caused by missing a security tactic during the architecture and design phase.
Implementation
Demonstrative Examples
Example 1
The following code excerpt reads a value from a browser cookie to determine the role of the user.
(bad code)
Example Language: Java
Cookie[] cookies = request.getCookies(); for (int i =0; i< cookies.length; i++) {
Cookie c = cookies[i]; if (c.getName().equals("role")) {
userRole = c.getValue();
}
}
It is easy for an attacker to modify the "role" value found in the locally stored cookie, allowing privilege escalation.
Selected Observed
Examples
Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this
weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.
e-dating application allows admin privileges by setting the admin cookie to 1.
Detection
Methods
Method
Details
Automated Static Analysis
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)
Effectiveness: High
Memberships
This MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that
reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a
weakness fits within the context of external information sources.
Nature
Type
ID
Name
MemberOf
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.
(this CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)
Reason
Acceptable-Use
Rationale
This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.
Comments
Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.
Notes
Relationship
This problem can be primary to many types of weaknesses in web applications. A developer may perform proper validation against URL parameters while assuming that attackers cannot modify cookies. As a result, the program might skip basic input validation to enable cross-site scripting, SQL injection, price tampering, and other attacks..
Clarified name and description; broadened the definition to include any security-critical operation, not just security decisions, to allow for relationships with injection weaknesses.
Description
This table specifies different individual consequences
associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is
violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an
adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about
how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other
consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be
exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to
achieve a different impact.
