CAPEC - CAPEC-592: Stored XSS (Version 3.6)


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CAPEC-592: Stored XSS

Attack Pattern ID: 592

Abstraction: Detailed

Status: Stable

Presentation Filter:

Description

This type of attack is a form of Cross-site Scripting (XSS) where a malicious script is persistenly "stored" within the data storage of a vulnerable web application. Initially presented by an adversary to the vulnerable web application, the malicious script is incorrectly considered valid input and is not properly encoded by the web application. A victim is then convinced to use the web application in a way that creates a response that includes the malicious script. This response is subsequently sent to the victim and the malicious script is executed by the victim's browser. To launch a successful Stored XSS attack, an adversary looks for places where stored input data is used in the generation of a response. This often involves elements that are not expected to host scripts such as image tags (<img>), or the addition of event attibutes such as onload and onmouseover. These elements are often not subject to the same input validation, output encoding, and other content filtering and checking routines.

Likelihood Of Attack

High

Typical Severity

Very High

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.	63	Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	18	XSS Targeting Non-Script Elements
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	32	XSS Through HTTP Query Strings
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	86	XSS Through HTTP Headers
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	198	XSS Targeting Error Pages
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	199	XSS Using Alternate Syntax
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	209	XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	243	XSS Targeting HTML Attributes
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	244	XSS Targeting URI Placeholders
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	245	XSS Using Doubled Characters
ParentOf	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	247	XSS Using Invalid Characters
CanFollow	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.	73	User-Controlled Filename
CanFollow	Detailed Attack Pattern - A detailed level attack pattern in CAPEC provides a low level of detail, typically leveraging a specific technique and targeting a specific technology, and expresses a complete execution flow. Detailed attack patterns are more specific than meta attack patterns and standard attack patterns and often require a specific protection mechanism to mitigate actual attacks. A detailed level attack pattern often will leverage a number of different standard level attack patterns chained together to accomplish a goal.	93	Log Injection-Tampering-Forging

This table shows the views that this attack pattern belongs to and top level categories within that view.

View Name	Top Level Categories
Domains of Attack	Software
Mechanisms of Attack	Inject Unexpected Items

Prerequisites

An application that leverages a client-side web browser with scripting enabled.

An application that fails to adequately sanitize or encode untrusted input.

An application that stores information provided by the user in data storage of some kind.

Skills Required

[Level: Medium]

Requires the ability to write scripts of varying complexity and to inject them through user controlled fields within the application.

Resources Required

None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.

Consequences

This table specifies different individual consequences associated with the attack pattern. The Scope identifies the security property that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in their attack. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a pattern will be used to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.

Scope	Impact	Likelihood
Confidentiality	Read Data
Confidentiality Authorization Access Control	Gain Privileges
Confidentiality Integrity Availability	Execute Unauthorized Commands
Integrity	Modify Data

Mitigations

Use browser technologies that do not allow client-side scripting.

Utilize strict type, character, and encoding enforcement.

Ensure that all user-supplied input is validated before being stored.

Example Instances

An adversary determines that a system uses a web based interface for administration. The adversary creates a new user record and supplies a malicious script in the user name field. The user name field is not validated by the system and a new log entry is created detailing the creation of the new user. Later, an administrator reviews the log in the administrative console. When the administrator comes across the new user entry, the browser sees a script and executes it, stealing the administrator's authentication cookie and forwarding it to the adversary. An adversary then uses the received authentication cookie to log in to the system as an administrator, provided that the administrator console can be accessed remotely.

An online discussion forum allows its members to post HTML-enabled messages, which can also include image tags. An adversary embeds JavaScript in the image tags of their message. The adversary then sends the victim an email advertising free goods and provides a link to the form for how to collect. When the victim visits the forum and reads the message, the malicious script is executed within the victim's browser.

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.

CWE-ID	Weakness Name
79	Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

References

[REF-605] "OWASP Web Security Testing Guide". Testing for Stored Cross Site Scripting. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). <https://owasp.org/www-project-web-security-testing-guide/latest/4-Web_Application_Security_Testing/07-Input_Validation_Testing/02-Testing_for_Stored_Cross_Site_Scripting.html>.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2017-04-15	CAPEC Content Team	The MITRE Corporation
2017-04-15
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2017-08-04	CAPEC Content Team	The MITRE Corporation
2017-08-04	Updated Resources_Required
2019-04-04	CAPEC Content Team	The MITRE Corporation
2019-04-04	Updated Related_Weaknesses
2019-09-30	CAPEC Content Team	The MITRE Corporation
2019-09-30	Updated Description
2020-07-30	CAPEC Content Team	The MITRE Corporation
2020-07-30	Updated Example_Instances
2020-12-17	CAPEC Content Team	The MITRE Corporation
2020-12-17	Updated References

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Page Last Updated or Reviewed: October 21, 2021


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Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

CAPEC-592: Stored XSS