CAPEC Definitions

    CAPEC Definitions / CAPEC-136

    CAPEC-136: LDAP Injection

    An attacker manipulates or crafts an LDAP query for the purpose of undermining the security of the target. Some applications use user input to create LDAP queries that are processed by an LDAP server. For example, a user might provide their username during authentication and the username might be inserted in an LDAP query during the authentication process. An attacker could use this input to inject additional commands into an LDAP query that could disclose sensitive information. For example, entering a * in the aforementioned query might return information about all users on the system. This attack is very similar to an SQL injection attack in that it manipulates a query to gather additional information or coerce a particular return value.

    Severity:High
    Possibility:High

    Extended Description

    No Extended Description.

    Mitigations

    Strong input validation - All user-controllable input must be validated and filtered for illegal characters as well as LDAP content.

    Use of custom error pages - Attackers can glean information about the nature of queries from descriptive error messages. Input validation must be coupled with customized error pages that inform about an error without disclosing information about the LDAP or application.

    Relationships with other CAPECs

    CAPEC-248: Command Injection

    Prerequisites

    The target application must accept a string as user input, fail to sanitize characters that have a special meaning in LDAP queries in the user input, and insert the user-supplied string in an LDAP query which is then processed.

    Related Weaknesses

    CWE-77: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection')

    CWE-90: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an LDAP Query ('LDAP Injection')

    CWE-20: Improper Input Validation