CNN Cross Site Scripting / Open Redirect

[Aerosol]

*CNN Travel.cnn.com <http://Travel.cnn.com> XSS and Ads.cnn.com
<http://Ads.cnn.com> Open Redirect Security Vulnerability*



*Domain:*
http://cnn.com

"CNN is sometimes referred to as CNN/U.S. to distinguish the American
channel from its international sister network, CNN International. As of
August 2010, CNN is available in over 100 million U.S. households.
Broadcast coverage of the U.S. channel extends to over 890,000 American
hotel rooms, as well as carriage on cable and satellite providers
throughout Canada. Globally, CNN programming airs through CNN
International, which can be seen by viewers in over 212 countries and
territories." (Wikipedia)

"As of August 2013, CNN is available to approximately 98,496,000 cable,
satellite and telco television households (86% of households with at least
one television set) in the United States." (Wikipedia)






*Vulnerability Description:*

CNN has a security problem. It cab be exploited by XSS (Cross Site
Scripting) and Open Redirect attacks.

Based on news published, CNN users were hacked based on both Open Redirect
and XSS vulnerabilities.

According to E Hacker News on June 06, 2013, "(@BreakTheSec) came across a
diet spam campaign that leverages the open redirect vulnerability in one of
the top News organization CNN."

After the attack, CNN takes measures to detect Open Redirect
vulnerabilities. The measure is quite good. Almost no links are vulnerable
to Open Redirect attack on CNN's website, now. It takes long time to find a
new Open Redirect vulnerability that is un-patched on its website.

CNN.com was hacked by Open Redirect in 2013. While the XSS attacks happened
in 2007.



*<1>*  "The tweet apparently shows cyber criminals managed to leverage the
open redirect security flaw in the CNN to redirect twitter users to the
Diet spam websites." (E Hacker News)

At the same time, the cybercriminals have also leveraged a similar
vulnerability in a Yahoo domain to trick users into thinking that the links
point to a trusted website.

Yahoo Open Redirect Vulnerabilities:
http://securityrelated.blogspot.sg/2014/12/yahoo-yahoocom-yahoocojp-open-redirect.html



*<2>* CNN.com XSS hacked
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Aug/216







*(1) CNN (cnn.com <http://cnn.com>) Travel-City Related Links XSS (cross
site scripting) Security Vulnerabilities*



*Domain:*
http://travel.cnn.com/



*Vulnerability Description:*

The vulnerabilities occur at "http://travel.cnn.com/city/all" pages. All
links under this URL are vulnerable to XSS attacks, e.g
http://travel.cnn.com/city/all/all/washington?page=0%2C1
http://travel.cnn.com/city/all/all/tokyo/all?page=0%2C1


The vulnerability can be exploited without user login. Tests were performed
on Firefox (34.0) in Ubuntu (14.04) and IE (9.0.15) in Windows 7.


*Poc Code:*
http://travel.cnn.com/city/all/all/tokyo/all' /"><img src=x
onerror=prompt(/justqdjing/)>
http://travel.cnn.com/city/all/all/bangkok/all' /"><img src=x
onerror=prompt(/justqdjing/)>


*(1.1) Poc Video:*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu47XiDV38M&feature=youtu.be

*Blog Details:*
http://securityrelated.blogspot.sg/2014/12/cnn-cnncom-travel-city-related-links.html




*(2) CNN cnn.com <http://cnn.com> ADS Open Redirect Security Vulnerability *


*Domain:*
http://ads.cnn.com



*Vulnerability Description:*

The vulnerability occurs at "http://ads.cnn.com/event.ng" page with
"&Redirect" parameter, i.e.
http://ads.cnn.com/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=92160&AdID=125504&TargetID=1346&RawValues=&Redirect=http:%2f%2fgoogle.com

The vulnerability can be attacked without user login. Tests were performed
on Chrome 32 in Windows 8 and Safari 6.16 in Mac OS X v10.7.


*(2.1)* Use the following tests to illustrate the scenario painted above.

The redirected webpage address is "http://www.tetraph.com/blog". Suppose
that this webpage is malicious.

*Vulnerable URL:*
http://ads.cnn.com/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=92160&AdID=125504&TargetID=1346&RawValues=&Redirect=http:%2f%2fcnn.com

*Poc Code:*
http://ads.cnn.com/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=92160&AdID=125504&TargetID=1346&RawValues=&Redirect=http:%2f%2ftetraph.com%2Fblog



*(2.1) Poc Video:*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE8lhDvKGN0&feature=youtu.be

*Blog Detail:*
http://securityrelated.blogspot.sg/2014/12/cnn-cnncom-ads-open-redirect-security.html






Those vulnerabilities were reported to CNN in early July by Contact
information from Here.
http://edition.cnn.com/feedback/#cnn_FBKCNN_com








Reported by:
Wang Jing, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore.
http://www.tetraph.com/wangjing/






*Blog Details:*
http://securityrelated.blogspot.sg/2014/12/cnn-cnncom-travel-xss-and-ads-open.html








--
Wang Jing
School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS)
Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

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