cms hacking

Confidential© 2013 Imperva, Inc. All rights reserved.

CMS Hacking

Analyzing the Risk with 3rd Party Applications

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Barry Shteiman – Director of Security Strategy04/11/2023

© 2013 Imperva, Inc. All rights reserved. Confidential

Agenda

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CMS defined Risks and trends Recent incidents Into the details

• An attack campaign

• Industrialized attack campaign

Reclaiming security


Today’s Speaker - Barry Shteiman

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Director of Security Strategy Security Researcher working

with the CTO office Author of several application

security tools, including HULK Open source security projects

code contributor Twitter @bshteiman


CMS Defined

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Content Management System


What is a CMS?

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A content management system (CMS) is a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content as well as maintenance from a central interface.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system


Deployment Distribution

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Source: http://trends.builtwith.com/cms

http://trends.builtwith.com/cms




Enterprise Adoption

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Risks and Trends

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© 2013 Imperva, Inc. All rights reserved. Confidential9

OWASP Top 10 – 2013 Update

New, A9 - Using Known Vulnerable Components


3rd Party

According to Veracode: • “Up to 70% of internally developed code originates outside of the

development team”

• 28% of assessed applications are identified as created by a 3rd party


When a 3rd Party Brings its Friends

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More than 20% of the 50 most popular WordPress plugins are vulnerable to web attacks

7 out of top 10 most popular e-commerce plugins are vulnerable to common Web attacks

-- Checkmarx Ltd. research lab “The Security State of WordPress’ Top 50 Plugins” white paper, June 18, 2013

You can’t fix code you don’t own, even if you host your own, that code has third party components in it.


Attack Surface

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Source: https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Publikationen/Studien/CMS/Studie_CMS.htmlBSI is Germany's federal office for information security

In a research conducted by BSI in Germany, ~20% of the vulnerabilities discovered were found in the CMS core, ~80% in plugins and extensions.

https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Publikationen/Studien/CMS/Studie_CMS.html



Classic Web Site Hacking

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Hacking

1. Identify Target2. Find Vulnerability3. Exploit

Single Site Attack


Classic Web Site Hacking

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Hacking


Hacking


Hacking


Hacking


Hacking


Multiple Site Attacks


CMS Hacking

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Hacking

1. Identify CMS2. Find Vulnerability3. Exploit

CMS Targeting Attack


Recent Incidents

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3rd Party Code Driven Incidents

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Breached via 3rd party application on Drupal.org own servers.



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3rd party service provider hacked, customer data affected.



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Yahoo’s 3rd party hack as detailed in Imperva’s January HII report.

HII Report: http://www.imperva.com/docs/HII_Lessons_Learned_From_the_Yahoo_Hack.pdf

http://www.imperva.com/docs/HII_Lessons_Learned_From_the_Yahoo_Hack.pdf

http://www.imperva.com/docs/HII_Lessons_Learned_From_the_Yahoo_Hack.pdf


Just Last Week…

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Into the Details

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How a CMS Attack Campaign Might Look


The Attacker’s Focus

Server Takeover

Direct Data Theft


CMS Mass Hacking

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Source: www.exploit-db.com

Step 1: Find a vulnerability in a CMS platform

Even public vulnerability databases, contain thousands of CMS related vulnerabilities.

http://www.exploit-db.com/


CMS Gone Wild(card)

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Step 2: Identify a fingerprint in a relevant CMS-based site

A fingerprint can be

• Image

• URL

• Tag

• Object Reference

• Response to a query

• etc..


Fingerprinted

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Tag based

The code will usually contain fingerprints (unless obfuscated) of the CMS in use.


Fingerprinted

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URL based

An administrator interface may be front facing, allowing detection and login attempts


Google Dork for the Masses

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Query: inurl:(wp-config.conf | wp-config.txt) ext:(conf | txt | config)

Results: 144,000


Google Dork for the Masses

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In our case: Database Host, User and Password Exposed


Botnets Targeting Your CMS

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Recently Observed:• Botnets Scan websites for

vulnerabilities

• Inject Hijack/Drive-by code to vulnerable systems

• Onboarding hijacked systems into the Botnet


From a Botnet Communication

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Botnet operator uses zombies to scan sites for vulnerabilities

* As observed by Imperva’s ADC Research Team

Google Dork


From a Botnet Communication

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Botnet exploits vulnerabilities and absorbs victim servers

* As observed by Imperva’s ADC Research Team


Reclaiming Security

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Securing 3rd Party Applications


Analyzing the Attack Surface

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Graphics Source: https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Publikationen/Studien/CMS/Studie_CMS.htmlBSI is Germany's federal office for information security

Certain vulnerabilities in 3rd party applications, can only be properly fixed using Web Application Firewalls.




Deployment Matters

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Cloud based deploymentOn premise deployment

Applications and 3rd party code deployed in your virtual/physical data center.

Hosted applications and B2B services.

Imperva Incapsula Cloud


When a company builds its security model it usually does not take into account elements that are not in control, which creates the security hole.

Companies should:

Implement policies both on the legal and technical aspects to control data access and data usage.

Require third party applications to accept your security policies and put proper controls in place

Monitor.

Recommendations

3535


Assume third-party code – coming from partners, vendors, or mergers and acquisitions – contains serious vulnerabilities

Pen test before deployment to identify these issues

Deploy the application behind a WAF to

• Virtually patch pen test findings

• Mitigate new risks (unknown on the pen test time)

• Mitigate issues the pen tester missed

• Use cloud WAF for remotely hosted applications

Virtually patch newly discovered CVEs

• Requires a robust security update service

Technical Recommendations

3636


Questions?

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www.imperva.com


Thank You

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