XPath Injection

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XPath Injection

Similar to SQL Injection, XPath Injection attacks occur when a web site uses user-supplied

information to construct an XPath query for XML data. By sending intentionally malformed

information into the web site, an attacker can find out how the XML data is structured, or access

data that he may not normally have access to. He may even be able to elevate his privileges on the

web site if the XML data is being used for authentication (such as an XML based user file).

Querying XML is done with XPath, a type of simple descriptive statement that allows the

XML query to locate a piece of information. Like SQL, you can specify certain attributes to find,

and patterns to match. When using XML for a web site it is common to accept some form of input

on the query string to identify the content to locate and display on the page. This input must be

sanitized to verify that it doesn't mess up the XPath query and return the wrong data.

XPath is a standard language; its notation/syntax is always implementation independent,

which means the attack may be automated. There are no different dialects as it takes place in

requests to the SQL databeses.

Download:

http://sec4app.com/download/XPathInjection.pdf