CAPEC Definitions

    CAPEC Definitions / CAPEC-275

    CAPEC-275: DNS Rebinding

    An adversary serves content whose IP address is resolved by a DNS server that the adversary controls. After initial contact by a web browser (or similar client), the adversary changes the IP address to which its name resolves, to an address within the target organization that is not publicly accessible. This allows the web browser to examine this internal address on behalf of the adversary.

    Severity:Very High
    Possibility:High

    Extended Description

    Web browsers enforce security zones based on DNS names in order to prevent cross-zone disclosure of information. Because the same name resolves to both these IP addresses, browsers will place both IP addresses in the same security zone and allow information to flow between the addresses. This allows adversaries to discover sensitive information about the internal network of an enterprise. If there is a trust relationship between the computer with the targeted browser and the internal machine the adversary identifies, additional attacks are possible. This attack differs from pharming attacks in that the adversary is the legitimate owner of the malicious DNS server and so does not need to compromise behavior of external DNS services.

    Mitigations

    Design: IP Pinning causes browsers to record the IP address to which a given name resolves and continue using this address regardless of the TTL set in the DNS response. Unfortunately, this is incompatible with the design of some legitimate sites.

    Implementation: Reject HTTP request with a malicious Host header.

    Implementation: Employ DNS resolvers that prevent external names from resolving to internal addresses.

    Relationships with other CAPECs

    CAPEC-194: Fake the Source of Data

    Prerequisites

    The target browser must access content server from the adversary controlled DNS name. Web advertisements are often used for this purpose. The target browser must honor the TTL value returned by the adversary and re-resolve the adversary's DNS name after initial contact.

    Related Weaknesses

    CWE-350: Reliance on Reverse DNS Resolution for a Security-Critical Action