An attacker exploits a sample, demonstration, or test API that is insecure by default and should not be resident on production systems. Some applications include APIs that are intended to allow an administrator to test and refine their domain. These APIs should usually be disabled once a system enters a production environment. Testing APIs may expose a great deal of diagnostic information intended to aid an administrator, but which can also be used by an attacker to further refine their attack. Moreover, testing APIs may not have adequate security controls or may not have undergone rigorous testing since they were not intended for use in production environments. As such, they may have many flaws and vulnerabilities that would allow an attacker to severely disrupt a target.
Likelihood Of Attack
Low
Typical Severity
High
Relationships
The table below shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern. These relationships are defined as ChildOf and ParentOf, and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as CanFollow, PeerOf, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar attack patterns that the user may want to explore.
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Meta Attack Pattern - A meta level attack pattern in CAPEC is a decidedly abstract characterization of a specific methodology or technique used in an attack. A meta attack pattern is often void of a specific technology or implementation and is meant to provide an understanding of a high level approach. A meta level attack pattern is a generalization of related group of standard level attack patterns. Meta level attack patterns are particularly useful for architecture and design level threat modeling exercises.
Determine Vulnerable API: An adversary explores a target system for sample or test APIs that have not been disabled by a system administrator and which may be exploitable by the adversary.
Techniques
If needed, the adversary explores an organization's network to determine if any specific systems of interest exist.
Exploit
Leverage Test API to Execute Attacks: Once an adversary has discovered a system with a sample or test API, the API is leveraged to exploit the system and/or conduct various attacks.
Techniques
The adversary can leverage the sample or test API to conduct several types of attacks such as Man-in-the-Middle attacks, keylogging, Cross Site Scripting (XSS), and more.
Prerequisites
The target must have installed test APIs and failed to secure or remove them when brought into a production environment.
Resources Required
For some APIs, the attacker will need that appropriate client application that interfaces with the API. Other APIs can be executed using simple tools, such as web browsers or console windows. In some cases, an attacker may need to be able to authenticate to the target before it can access the vulnerable APIs.
Mitigations
Ensure that production systems to not contain sample or test APIs and that these APIs are only used in development environments.
Related Weaknesses
A Related Weakness relationship associates a weakness with this attack pattern. Each association implies a weakness that must exist for a given attack to be successful. If multiple weaknesses are associated with the attack pattern, then any of the weaknesses (but not necessarily all) may be present for the attack to be successful. Each related weakness is identified by a CWE identifier.
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Page Last Updated or Reviewed:
September 30, 2019
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