Re: Environment for testing WebApp Security Scanners

["Dean H. Saxe" <dean () fullfrontalnerdity com>]

Then why haven't the tool vendors gone down that path?  They are  
marketing to the lowest common denominator.  People who want to check  
a box and say "I'm secure!"

Granted, web app scanners can be used as part of a secure SDLC, but  
I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of organizations don't  
implement them within an S-SDLC.  Most probably don't ever do a  
follow-up with a manual pen test.

-dhs


Dean H. Saxe, CISSP, CEH
dean () fullfrontalnerdity com
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or  
that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only  
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American  
public."
    -- Theodore Roosevelt


On Aug 8, 2006, at 7:25 PM, mikeiscool wrote:

> On 8/9/06, Dean H. Saxe <dean () fullfrontalnerdity com> wrote:
> > Just remember, some vendors put in signatures specifically for apps
> > like this that they know will be tested.
> >
> > I spoke with some folks at Blackhat last week from one of the tool
> > vendors that admitted they don't find all the vulnerabilities in
> > HacmeBank.  Why?  Because bypassing the login form using SQL
> > injection may require you to throw away the cookies which maintain
> > the login attempts state information.  For instance, if you try SQL
> > injection too many times and fail to login with those attempts, a
> > cookie which controls the remaining number of login attempts will
> > force all further attempts to fail.  Of course, a human would delete
> > the login attempt counter cookie and solve the problem quite simply.
> >
> > I see this as a major weakness of these types of tools.  Developers
> > store all kinds of crap in cookies, without a good analysis of the
> > cookies by a human, how do we know when deleting this information
> > will adversely affect the application's security?  This is not an
> > edge case where such tools scan.  Its a very commonly revealed
> > vulnerability in my web app pen testing and code review experience.
> >
> > (FWIW I work for Foundstone.)
>
> Surely it'd be trivial to have a cookie specification field of the
> scanning tool. The person doing the scanning could review the cookie
> and spec it up a bit. Then the tool could be a bit context aware, at
> least of cookies, and watch when fields it may be interested in
> changes.
>
> I.e. you could draw links between cookie items and pages, or cookie
> items and request fields, etc, etc, etc.
>
> The tool could start to learn common cookie forms and use that to help
> suggest what various fields might be.
>
>
> > -dhs
> >
> > Dean H. Saxe, CISSP, CEH
> > dean () fullfrontalnerdity com
> > Here in America everything is bought and sold, you can get anything
> > for little bits of gold.
> > We'll rape the earth and ruin the air, cut down every tree from here
> > to there.
> >      -- Donna The Buffalo "America"
>
> -- mic


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