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**Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)** is a type of security vulnerability found in web applications. It enables attackers to perform actions on behalf of unsuspecting users by exploiting their authenticated sessions. The attack is executed when a user, who is logged into a victim's platform, visits a malicious site. This site then triggers requests to the victim's account through methods like executing JavaScript, submitting forms, or fetching images.
1.**Identify a Valuable Action**: The attacker needs to find an action worth exploiting, such as changing the user's password, email, or elevating privileges.
2.**Session Management**: The user's session should be managed solely through cookies or the HTTP Basic Authentication header, as other headers cannot be manipulated for this purpose.
3.**Absence of Unpredictable Parameters**: The request should not contain unpredictable parameters, as they can prevent the attack.
* [**SameSite cookies**](hacking-with-cookies/#samesite): This attribute prevents the browser from sending cookies along with cross-site requests. [More about SameSite cookies](hacking-with-cookies/#samesite).
* [**Cross-origin resource sharing**](cors-bypass.md): The CORS policy of the victim site can influence the feasibility of the attack, especially if the attack requires reading the response from the victim site. [Learn about CORS bypass](cors-bypass.md).
* **User Verification**: Prompting for the user's password or solving a captcha can confirm the user's intent.
* **Checking Referrer or Origin Headers**: Validating these headers can help ensure requests are coming from trusted sources. However, careful crafting of URLs can bypass poorly implemented checks, such as:
- Using `http://mal.net?orig=http://example.com` (URL ends with the trusted URL)
- Using `http://example.com.mal.net` (URL starts with the trusted URL)
* **Modifying Parameter Names**: Altering the names of parameters in POST or GET requests can help in preventing automated attacks.
* **CSRF Tokens**: Incorporating a unique CSRF token in each session and requiring this token in subsequent requests can significantly mitigate the risk of CSRF. The effectiveness of the token can be enhanced by enforcing CORS.
Maybe the form you want to abuse is prepared to send a **POST request with a CSRF token but**, you should **check** if a **GET** is also **valid** and if when you send a GET request the **CSRF token is still being validated**.
Applications might implement a mechanism to **validate tokens** when they are present. However, a vulnerability arises if the validation is skipped altogether when the token is absent. Attackers can exploit this by **removing the parameter** that carries the token, not just its value. This allows them to circumvent the validation process and conduct a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack effectively.
Applications **not tying CSRF tokens to user sessions** present a significant **security risk**. These systems verify tokens against a **global pool** rather than ensuring each token is bound to the initiating session.
Here's how attackers exploit this:
1.**Authenticate** using their own account.
2.**Obtain a valid CSRF token** from the global pool.
3.**Use this token** in a CSRF attack against a victim.
This vulnerability allows attackers to make unauthorized requests on behalf of the victim, exploiting the application's **inadequate token validation mechanism**.
For example, if it's **using a PUT** method you can try to **use a POST** method and **send**: _https://example.com/my/dear/api/val/num?**\_method=PUT**_
Applications may implement CSRF protection by duplicating the token in both a cookie and a request parameter or by setting a CSRF cookie and verifying if the token sent in the backend corresponds to the cookie. The application validates requests by checking if the token in the request parameter aligns with the value in the cookie.
However, this method is vulnerable to CSRF attacks if the website has flaws allowing an attacker to set a CSRF cookie in the victim's browser, such as a CRLF vulnerability. The attacker can exploit this by loading a deceptive image that sets the cookie, followed by initiating the CSRF attack.
Note that if the **csrf token is related with the session cookie this attack won't work** because you will need to set the victim your session, and therefore you will be attacking yourself.
According to [**this**](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS#simple\_requests), in order to **avoid preflight** requests using **POST** method these are the allowed Content-Type values:
However, note that the **severs logic may vary** depending on the **Content-Type** used so you should try the values mentioned and others like **`application/json`**_**,**_**`text/xml`**, **`application/xml`**_._
When attempting to send JSON data via a POST request, using the `Content-Type: application/json` in an HTML form is not directly possible. Similarly, utilizing `XMLHttpRequest` to send this content type initiates a preflight request. Nonetheless, there are strategies to potentially bypass this limitation and check if the server processes the JSON data irrespective of the Content-Type:
1.**Use Alternative Content Types**: Employ `Content-Type: text/plain` or `Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded` by setting `enctype="text/plain"` in the form. This approach tests if the backend utilizes the data regardless of the Content-Type.
2.**Modify Content Type**: To avoid a preflight request while ensuring the server recognizes the content as JSON, you can send the data with `Content-Type: text/plain; application/json`. This doesn't trigger a preflight request but might be processed correctly by the server if it's configured to accept `application/json`.
3.**SWF Flash File Utilization**: A less common but feasible method involves using an SWF flash file to bypass such restrictions. For an in-depth understanding of this technique, refer to [this post](https://anonymousyogi.medium.com/json-csrf-csrf-that-none-talks-about-c2bf9a480937).
Applications may validate the 'Referer' header only when it's present. To prevent a browser from sending this header, the following HTML meta tag can be used:
The first part of [**this CTF writeup**](https://github.com/google/google-ctf/tree/master/2023/web-vegsoda/solution) is explained that [Oak's source code](https://github.com/oakserver/oak/blob/main/router.ts#L281), a router is set to **handle HEAD requests as GET requests** with no response body - a common workaround that isn't unique to Oak. Instead of a specific handler that deals with HEAD reqs, they're simply **given to the GET handler but the app just removes the response body**.
If a **CSRF token** is being used as **defence** you could try to **exfiltrate it** abusing a [**XSS**](xss-cross-site-scripting/#xss-stealing-csrf-tokens) vulnerability or a [**Dangling Markup**](dangling-markup-html-scriptless-injection/) vulnerability.
xh.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'); //to send proper header info (optional, but good to have as it may sometimes not work without this)
The code can be used to Brut Force a login form using a CSRF token (It's also using the header X-Forwarded-For to try to bypass a possible IP blacklisting):
<summary><strong>Learn AWS hacking from zero to hero with</strong><ahref="https://training.hacktricks.xyz/courses/arte"><strong>htARTE (HackTricks AWS Red Team Expert)</strong></a><strong>!</strong></summary>
* If you want to see your **company advertised in HackTricks** or **download HackTricks in PDF** Check the [**SUBSCRIPTION PLANS**](https://github.com/sponsors/carlospolop)!
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* **Share your hacking tricks by submitting PRs to the** [**HackTricks**](https://github.com/carlospolop/hacktricks) and [**HackTricks Cloud**](https://github.com/carlospolop/hacktricks-cloud) github repos.