CAPEC Definitions / CAPEC-31
CAPEC-31: Accessing/Intercepting/Modifying HTTP Cookies
This attack relies on the use of HTTP Cookies to store credentials, state information and other critical data on client systems. There are several different forms of this attack. The first form of this attack involves accessing HTTP Cookies to mine for potentially sensitive data contained therein. The second form involves intercepting this data as it is transmitted from client to server. This intercepted information is then used by the adversary to impersonate the remote user/session. The third form is when the cookie's content is modified by the adversary before it is sent back to the server. Here the adversary seeks to convince the target server to operate on this falsified information.
Extended Description
No Extended Description.
Mitigations
Design: Use input validation for cookies
Design: Generate and validate MAC for cookies
Implementation: Use SSL/TLS to protect cookie in transit
Implementation: Ensure the web server implements all relevant security patches, many exploitable buffer overflows are fixed in patches issued for the software.
Relationships with other CAPECs
Prerequisites
Target server software must be a HTTP daemon that relies on cookies.
The cookies must contain sensitive information.
The adversary must be able to make HTTP requests to the server, and the cookie must be contained in the reply.
Related Weaknesses
CWE-565: Reliance on Cookies without Validation and Integrity Checking
CWE-302: Authentication Bypass by Assumed-Immutable Data
CWE-311: Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data
CWE-113: Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences in HTTP Headers ('HTTP Request/Response Splitting')
CWE-539: Use of Persistent Cookies Containing Sensitive Information
CWE-20: Improper Input Validation
CWE-315: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in a Cookie
CWE-384: Session Fixation
CWE-472: External Control of Assumed-Immutable Web Parameter
CWE-602: Client-Side Enforcement of Server-Side Security
CWE-642: External Control of Critical State Data
