Which of the following was launched against a company based on the following IDS log?
122.41.15.252 – – [21/May/2012:00:17:20 +1200] “GET
/index.php?username=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAA HTTP/1.1″ 200 2731 “http://www.company.com/cgibin/
forum/commentary.pl/noframes/read/209″ “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Hotbar 4.4.7.0)”
A.
SQL injection
B.
Buffer overflow attack
C.
XSS attack
D.
Online password crack
Explanation:
The username should be just a username; instead we can see it’s a long line of text with an HTTP
command in it. This is an example of a buffer overflow attack.
A buffer overflow occurs when a program or process tries to store more data in a buffer (temporary data
storage area) than it was intended to hold. Since buffers are created to contain a finite amount of data,
the extra information – which has to go somewhere – can overflow into adjacent buffers, corrupting or
overwriting the valid data held in them. Although it may occur accidentally through programming error,
buffer overflow is an increasingly common type of security attack on data integrity. In buffer overflow
attacks, the extra data may contain codes designed to trigger specific actions, in effect sending new
instructions to the attacked computer that could, for example, damage the user’s files, change data, or
disclose confidential information. Buffer overflow attacks are said to have arisen because the C
programming language supplied the framework, and poor programming practices supplied the
vulnerability.Incorrect Answers:
A: SQL injection is a code injection technique, used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious
SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution (e.g. to dump the database contents to the
attacker). SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application’s software, for example,
when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL
statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known
as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database. The code in the
question is not SQL code.
C: Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web
applications. XSS enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users.
Cross-site scripting uses known vulnerabilities in web-based applications, their servers, or plug-in systems
on which they rely. Exploiting one of these, attackers fold malicious content into the content being
delivered from the compromised site. When the resulting combined content arrives at the client-side web
browser, it has all been delivered from the trusted source, and thus operates under the permissions
granted to that system. By finding ways of injecting malicious scripts into web pages, an attacker can gain
elevated access-privileges to sensitive page content, session cookies, and a variety of other information
maintained by the browser on behalf of the user. The code in this question is not an example of an XSS
attack.
D: The code in the question is not an online password crack. The long text in place of a username
indicates an attempt to overflow a memory buffer.http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/buffer-overflow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting