The attacker loads and executes an arbitrary local PHP file on a target machine. The attacker could use this to try to load old versions of PHP files that have known vulnerabilities, to load PHP files that the attacker placed on the local machine during a prior attack, or to otherwise change the functionality of the targeted application in unexpected ways.
Typical Severity
Medium
Relationships
This table 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
Standard Attack Pattern - A standard level attack pattern in CAPEC is focused on a specific methodology or technique used in an attack. It is often seen as a singular piece of a fully executed attack. A standard attack pattern is meant to provide sufficient details to understand the specific technique and how it attempts to accomplish a desired goal. A standard level attack pattern is a specific type of a more abstract meta level attack pattern.
Survey application: Using a browser or an automated tool, an adversary follows all public links on a web site. They record all the links they find. The adversary is looking for URLs that show PHP file inclusion is used, which can look something like "http://vulnerable-website/file.php?file=index.php".
Techniques
Use a spidering tool to follow and record all links. Make special note of any links that include parameters in the URL.
Use a proxy tool to record all links visited during a manual traversal of the web application. Make special note of any links that include parameters in the URL. Manual traversal of this type is frequently necessary to identify forms that are GET method forms rather than POST forms.
Use a browser to manually explore the website and analyze how it is constructed. Many browser's plugins are available to facilitate the analysis or automate the URL discovery.
Experiment
Attempt variations on input parameters: Once the adversary finds a vulnerable URL that takes file input, they attempt a variety of path traversal techniques to attempt to get the application to display the contents of a local file, or execute a different PHP file already stored locally on the server.
Techniques
Use a list of probe strings to inject in parameters of known URLs. The probe strings are variants of path traversal techniques used to include well known files.
Use a proxy tool to record results of manual input of local file inclusion probes in known URLs.
Exploit
Include desired local file: Once the adversary has determined which techniques of path traversal successfully work with the vulnerable PHP application, they will target a specific local file to include. These can be files such as "/etc/passwd", "/etc/shadow", or configuration files for the application that might expose sensitive information.
Prerequisites
The targeted PHP application must have a bug that allows an attacker to control which code file is loaded at some juncture.
Resources Required
The attacker needs to have enough access to the target application to control the identity of a locally included PHP file.
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.
Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere
Taxonomy Mappings
CAPEC mappings to ATT&CK techniques leverage an inheritance model to streamline and minimize direct CAPEC/ATT&CK mappings. Inheritance of a mapping is indicated by text stating that the parent CAPEC has relevant ATT&CK mappings. Note that the ATT&CK Enterprise Framework does not use an inheritance model as part of the mapping to CAPEC.
Relevant to the ATT&CK taxonomy mapping (see
parent
)
Description
This table 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.
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