5/12/2015

BruteforceattackOWASP

Bruteforceattack
FromOWASP
ThisisanAttack.Toviewallattacks,pleaseseetheAttackCategorypage.

Lastrevision(mm/dd/yy):08/12/2013

RelatedSecurityActivities
HowtoTestforBruteForceVulnerabilities
SeetheOWASPTestingGuidearticleonhowtoTestforBruteForceVulnerabilities.
Lastrevision(mm/dd/yy):08/12/2013

Description
Abruteforceattackcanmanifestitselfinmanydifferentways,butprimarilyconsistsinanattacker
configuringpredeterminedvalues,makingrequeststoaserverusingthosevalues,andthenanalyzingthe
response.Forthesakeofefficiency,anattackermayuseadictionaryattack(withorwithoutmutations)
oratraditionalbruteforceattack(withgivenclassesofcharacterse.g.:alphanumerical,special,case
(in)sensitive).Consideringagivenmethod,numberoftries,efficiencyofthesystemwhichconductsthe
attack,andestimatedefficiencyofthesystemwhichisattackedtheattackerisabletocalculate
approximatelyhowlongitwilltaketosubmitallchosenpredeterminedvalues.

RiskFactors
Examples
Bruteforceattacksareoftenusedforattackingauthenticationanddiscoveringhiddencontent/pages
withinawebapplication.TheseattacksareusuallysentviaGETandPOSTrequeststotheserver.In
regardstoauthentication,bruteforceattacksareoftenmountedwhenanaccountlockoutpolicy
(https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Authentication_Cheat_Sheet#Implement_Account_Lockout)innot
inplace.

Example1

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Brute_force_attack

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Awebapplicationcanbeattackedviabruteforcebytakingawordlistofknownpages,forinstance
fromapopularcontentmanagementsystem,andsimplyrequestingeachknownpagethenanalyzingthe
HTTPresponsecodetodetermineifthepageexistsonthetargetserver.
DirBuster(https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_DirBuster_Project)isatoolthatdoes
exactlythis.
Othertoolsforthistypeofattackareasfollows:
dirb(http://sourceforge.net/projects/dirb/)
WebRoot(http://www.cirt.dk/tools/webroot/WebRoot.txt)

Dirbiscapableof:
setcookies
addanyHTTPheader
usePROXY
mutateobjectswhichwerefound
testhttp(s)connections
seekcataloguesand/orfilesusingdefineddictionariesandtemplates
andmuchmuchmore

Thesimplesttesttoperformis:
rezos@dojo~/d/owasp_tools/dirb$./dirbhttp://testsite.test/

DIRBv1.9
ByTheDarkRaver

START_TIME:MonJul923:13:162007
URL_BASE:http://testsite.test/
WORDLIST_FILES:wordlists/common.txt
SERVER_BANNER:lighttpd/1.4.15
NOT_EXISTANT_CODE:404[NOTFOUND]
(Location:''Size:345)

GeneratingWordlist...
GeneratedWords:839
ScanningURL:http://testsite.test/
FOUND:http://testsite.test/phpmyadmin/
(***)DIRECTORY(*)

Intheoutputtheattackerisinformedthatphpmyadmin/directorywasfound.Theattackerhasnow
foundapotentialdirectoryofinterestwithinthisapplication.Indirb'stemplatesthereare,amongothers,
adictionarycontaininginformationaboutinvalidhttpdconfigurations.Thisdictionarywilldetect
weaknessesofthiskind.
TheapplicationWebRoot.pl(http://www.cirt.dk/tools/webroot/WebRoot.txt),writtenbyCIRT.DK,has
embeddedmechanismsforparsingserverresponses,andbasedonthephrasespecifiedbytheattacker,
measuresiftheserverresponseisexpected.
Forexample:
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Brute_force_attack

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Np.
./WebRoot.plnoupdatehosttestsite.testport80verbosematch"test"url"/private/<BRUTE>"
incrementallowercaseminimum1maximum1

oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00
oWebserverBruteforcing1.8o
0*************!!!WARNING!!!************0
0*******FORPENETRATIONUSEONLY*********0
0******************************************0
o(c)2007byDennisRandCIRT.DKo
oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

[X]CheckingforupdatesNOCHECK
[X]CheckingforFalsePositiveScanOK
[X]UsingIncrementalOK
[X]StartingScanOK
GET/private/bHTTP/1.1
GET/private/zHTTP/1.1

[X]ScancompleteOK
[X]Totalattempts26
[X]Sucessfullattempts1
oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

WebRoot.plfoundonefile"/private/b"ontestsite.test,whichcontainsphrase"test".
Anotherexampleistoexaminerangesofthevariable'svalues:

./WebRoot.plnoupdatehosttestsite.testport80verbosediff"Error"url"/index.php?id=<BRUTE>"incrementalinte

RoadBlocks
Oneofthemainissueswithtoolslikedirb/dirbusterconsistintheanalysisofserverresponses.With
moreadvancedserverconfiguration(e.g.withmod_rewrite)automatictoolsaresometimesunableto
determine"Filenotfound"errorsduetotheserverresponsebeinganHTTPresponsecode200butthe
pageitselfindicates"Filenotfound".Thiscanleadtofalsepositivesifthebruteforcetoolisonly
relyingonHTTPresponsecodes.
Anadvancedapplicationassessmenttool,suchasBurpSuite(http://portswigger.net/),canbeusedto
parsespecificpartsofthepagereturned,lookingforcertainstringsinanefforttoreducefalsepositives.

Example2
Inregardstoauthentication,whennopasswordpolicyisinplaceanattackercanuselistsofcommon
usernameandpasswordstobruteforceausernameand/orpasswordfielduntilsuccessfulauthentication.

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Brute_force_attack

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DefensiveTools
PhpBruteForceAttackDetector
http://yehg.net/lab/pr0js/files.php/php_brute_force_detect.zip
DetectyourwebserversbeingscannedbybruteforcetoolssuchasWFuzz,OWASPDirBusterand
vulnerabilityscannerssuchasNessus,Nikto,Acunetix..etc.Thishelpsyouquicklyidentifyprobable
probingbybadguyswho'swannadigpossiblesecurityholes.
http://yehg.net/lab/pr0js/tools/phpbruteforcedetectorreadme.pdf

RelatedThreatAgents
Category:Authentication

RelatedAttacks
BlindSQLInjection
BlindXPathInjection

RelatedVulnerabilities
InsufficientSessionIDLength

RelatedControls
Authentication

References
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_DirBuster_ProjectDirBuster
http://portswigger.net/
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