Security Issues

Hi,

I have used all your web assist products for a while now and think there great. I have problem with the Power Store.

I have produced an ecommerce website using power store, but my customer wanted to added macfee onto the website. But this program has found several possible security issues.

Description

During our analysis of your web application, we were able to intentionally generate database specific errors. By causing a system to output errors such as these, it is often possible to determine the database version and inject database command syntax that would allow us to extract data.

The information gathered from the specific error responses generated using various input validation techniques by the web application scanner has determined the remote host may be running a MySQL database.

The extent of the damage that can be caused by this vulnerability varies greatly depending on environment and configuration. While input validation via webapp may cause a database to generate an error, the database configuration will also play an important role in determining how much it can be altered. A remote attacker may be able to gain access to very sensitive information, or gain administrative access.

General Solution

THE SINGLE BEST WAY TO FIX THIS VULNERABILITY IS TO IDENTIFY THE ACCEPTABLE INPUT FOR EACH FORM PARAMETER AND REJECT INPUT THAT DOES NOT MEET THAT CRITERIA.

The following is an acceptable solution however it is not optimal.

Implement content parsing on data input fields including URL parameters.

Remove the following characters from any user or dynamic database input: (examples in VBScript)
• ' (escape the single quote) input = replace( input, "'", "''" )
• " (double quote) input = replace( input, """", "" )
• ) (close parenthesis) input = replace( input, ")", "" )
• ( (open parenthesis) input = replace( input, "(", "" )
• ; (semi-colon) input = replace( input, ";", "" )
• - (dash) input = replace( input, "-", "" )
• | (pipe) input = replace( input, "|", "" )
On text input it is recommended to append quotes around the user supplied input.

Please contact ScanAlert Support if you need further instructions.


Is this something I have to worry about?

And would you make the changes they are advising?

Kind Regards

Brian

Was there any more specific information that was included in the report that was generated? I know that throughout the site in the code there is use of the 'or die(mysql_error())'. This code will print out a mysql error if an error occurs with the query. In this error it is mentioned that the query is a MySQL query.

Since it was not determined how the vulnerability was found I'm not sure if this is what is being referred to but it sounds like it would match. If this is the case you could test it out by making a backup of your site first, then do a site wide find and replace for:

or die(mysql_error())

and remove the mysql_error() so that it is like this:

or die()

If you can run this check on the updated version of the powerstore and do not get this issue then it would indicate that this is the problem. The bad thing about removing this is that you will not get an error if one occurs within the sql on the site.

Hi,

Not sure if this is any help, but I have attached the report (copied from word and pasted into notepad to make file smaller.

Kind Regards

brian

Thanks for getting back with that. I'm not an expert at reviewing these types of reports but from what I can see the issues it is referring to are MySQL errors. It looks like these are being considered errors based on the assumption that divulging the type and version of you database server can present a vulnerability for the site. I'm not so sure that I agree with this assumption but that is what it is saying.

Since the report seems to only be referring to MySQL errors that are occurring you could overcome this by removing the mysql_error() from within the die statements after the queries. You should make a backup of the site first, then update it by doing a site wide find and replace for the following values:

find:

die(mysql_error())

replace with:

die()

Making this change will cause the page to stop processing at this point and not return any type of error if an error occurs.

I have been informed by a colleague who has looked into this that the specific problem that was causing the MySQL type of errors to occur can be addressed with a code update to the page.

On the products results page update the code that is on lines 75-91

from this:

<?php

if ( isset($_GET["Search"]))  {

  $_SESSION["WADbSearch1_Products_Cat"]="";

  if (isset($_GET["ProductCategoryID"]))  {

    if ($WADbSearch1->whereClause != "")  {

      $WADbSearch1->whereClause .= " AND ";

    } else  {

      $WADbSearch1->whereClause .= " WHERE ";

    }

    $WADbSearch1->whereClause .= "ProductID IN (SELECT ProductID FROM ps3_productcategories WHERE (CategoryID = ".implode($_GET["ProductCategoryID"]," OR CategoryID = ")."))";

    $_SESSION["WADbSearch1_Products_Results"]=$WADbSearch1->whereClause;

    if (sizeof($_GET["ProductCategoryID"]) == 1)  {

      $_SESSION["WADbSearch1_Products_Cat"]=$_GET["ProductCategoryID"][0];

    }

  }

}

?>

to this

<?php 

if ( isset($_GET["Search"]))  { 

$_SESSION["WADbSearch1_Products_Cat"]=""; 

if (isset($_GET["ProductCategoryID"]))  { 

  if ($WADbSearch1->whereClause != "")  { 

     $WADbSearch1->whereClause .= " AND "; 

  } else  { 

     $WADbSearch1->whereClause .= " WHERE "; 

  } 

   for ($x=0; $x<sizeof($_GET["ProductCategoryID"]); $x++)  { 

        $_GET["ProductCategoryID"][$x] = intval($_GET["ProductCategoryID"][$x]); 

   } 

  $WADbSearch1->whereClause .= "ProductID IN (SELECT ProductID FROM ps3_productcategories WHERE (CategoryID = ".implode($_GET["ProductCategoryID"]," OR CategoryID = ")."))"; 

  $_SESSION["WADbSearch1_Products_Results"]=$WADbSearch1->whereClause; 

  if (sizeof($_GET["ProductCategoryID"]) == 1)  { 

     $_SESSION["WADbSearch1_Products_Cat"]=$_GET["ProductCategoryID"][0]; 

  } 

} 

}

?>

Please give this a try on your products results page then run this check again to see if you get any more vulnerabilities. If you do please post back with the info for them.

I have spoken to some security experts and they are saying your applications are leaving the database wide open to communication by hackers. Is this being addressed?

Just recently I experienced a an SQL injection attack through the DataAssist app although there was no input field or mysql error message.

The problem is discussed here:

67939

Has this been resolved? How about in DataAssist?

you reported issues in another thread as well where i started a support incident, we will look into this issue with you at the same time as the other one.

Thank you. I would like to know as soon as possible if my clients' data is protected form these type of attacks.

The page that was attacked was felix.php?ID=128. I recently took out a search field, which was not validating text, and I deactivated all mysql error messages, however the person scanning the page told me that he was still able to communicate with my database.

please add this information to your support incident and ray will look into this with you.