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Vulnerable Products: |
JRun Java application server from Allaire. All current versions (with latest security patches as of November 2001) are believed to be affected, including 2.3.3, 3.0, and 3.1. |
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Impact: |
Revealing of source code to Java Server Pages, and other protected files inside the web root. |
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Affects: |
Web sites using vulnerable products as stated above |
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Revision history: |
Vendor notified: 22nd October, 2001 |
Overview
JRun supports a number of different technologies for dynamically generated content, most importantly Java Server Pages. One lesser-used feature is the support for Server Side Includes (SSI); this is a much simpler language than JSP, which is primarily for including the text of other files on the server (for instance adding standard headers or footers to otherwise static pages), and also supports invoking servlets. By default, the file extension .shtml is assigned to the SSI handler.
Unfortunately, a flaw in the server side component that processes requests for SSI pages means that user supplied data can be included in the SSI processing. A remote user can submit requests containing data which will be processed by the SSI filter; as a result the user can cause the server to execute arbitrary SSI code.
Details
When a request for an SSI page is submitted to the server, and the page does not exist, the SSI handler "falls back" on the body of the HTTP request itself. Usually an HTTP request does not contain a body, but a malicious user can easily construct a request with a body containing SSI commands. These can be used to include the source to other files on the server. For example, a request such as:
GET /nosuch.shtml HTTP/1.0 Content Length: 38 <!--#include virtual="/index.jsp"-->
would return the source of the index.jsp page (subject to SSI processing – so servlet tags may be replaced, but most JSP source would be passed through unmodified). It should be noted that the include directive does not go through the usual URL processing – for example includes of .jsp files are not done by the JSP handler, hence the source code to .jsp‘s can be obtained. It also bypasses any access controls enforced by the web server (so files in protected directories such as the /WEB-INF/ directory can be accessed). However, it was not possible to access files outside of the web root in the cases that Netcraft tested.
Netcraft also verified that it was possible to execute Java servlets on the server using this vulnerability. As it is common to expose these via the /servlet/ URL mapping, this does not give the attacker any new advantage in the normal setup but could be considered a problem by sites that have disabled the /servlet/ mapping.
Recommendations
As a workaround, sites using JRun can disable the SSI support on the web server, as this is not required for any other features of the server including Java Server Pages, so few sites actually require this functionality. This involves both disabling the .shtml extension mapping to SSI handling, and the /servlet/ method of invoking the servlet which does SSI processing (the latter can be done by either disabling the /servlet/ mapping if it is not used, or by blocking access to the particular servlet affected – allaire.jrun.ssi.SSIFilter for JRun 3.x, com.livesoftware.jrun.plugins.ssi.SSIFilter on JRun 2.3.x). See the security bulletin from Allaire for detailed information on making this configuration change.
Vendor Patches and Comments
Allaire have responded promptly to Netcraft’s initial report of this problem. They have confirmed that this is a security problem in the JRun versions listed. A patch is expected to be included in the next rollup patch for JRun. In the meantime they have released a security bulletin to notify customers of this problem, and advise a workaround by disabling SSI.
Disclaimer
This information is provided on an AS IS basis in the hope that it is useful in securing vulnerable computer systems; however Netcraft cannot guarantee its accuracy or accept responsibility for any damage resulting from the release of this advisory.
Netcraft
This is one of many vulnerabilities tested by Netcraft’s security testing services. Please see http://news.netcraft.com/archives/security.html for more information.