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CWE-784

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CWE-784

Reliance on Cookies without Validation and Integrity Checking in a Security Decision

Variant
Draft

Description

The product uses a protection mechanism that relies on the existence or values of a cookie, but it does not properly ensure that the cookie is valid for the associated user.

Attackers can easily modify cookies, within the browser or by implementing the client-side code outside of the browser. Attackers can bypass protection mechanisms such as authorization and authentication by modifying the cookie to contain an expected value.

Common Consequences

Scope

Access Control

Impact

Bypass Protection Mechanism, Gain Privileges or Assume Identity

Potential Mitigations

Architecture and Design

Avoid using cookie data for a security-related decision.

Implementation

Perform thorough input validation (i.e.: server side validation) on the cookie data if you're going to use it for a security related decision.

Architecture and Design

Add integrity checks to detect tampering.

Architecture and Design

Protect critical cookies from replay attacks, since cross-site scripting or other attacks may allow attackers to steal a strongly-encrypted cookie that also passes integrity checks. This mitigation applies to cookies that should only be valid during a single transaction or session. By enforcing timeouts, you may limit the scope of an attack. As part of your integrity check, use an unpredictable, server-side value that is not exposed to the client.

CVE-2009-1549

Attacker can bypass authentication by setting a cookie to a specific value.

CVE-2009-1619

Attacker can bypass authentication and gain admin privileges by setting an "admin" cookie to 1.

CVE-2009-0864

Content management system allows admin privileges by setting a "login" cookie to "OK."

CVE-2008-5784

e-dating application allows admin privileges by setting the admin cookie to 1.

CVE-2008-6291

Web-based email list manager allows attackers to gain admin privileges by setting a login cookie to "admin."

Applicable Platforms

Not Language-Specific

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