31 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
31 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
=== What is the potential impact?
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In the context of a web application vulnerable to XPath injection: +
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After discovering the injection point, attackers insert data into the
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vulnerable field to execute malicious commands in the affected XML documents.
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The impact of this vulnerability depends on the importance of XML
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structures in the enterprise. +
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In cases where organizations rely on XML structures for business-critical
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operations or where XML is used only for innocuous data transport, the severity
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of an attack ranges from critical to harmless.
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Below are some real-world scenarios that illustrate some impacts of an attacker
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exploiting the vulnerability.
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==== Data Leaks
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A malicious XPath query allows direct data leakage from one or more databases.
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Although XML is not as widely used as it once was, this possibility still
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exists with configuration files, for example.
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==== Data deletion and denial of service
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The malicious query allows the attacker to delete data in the affected XML
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documents. +
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This threat is particularly insidious if the attacked organization does not
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maintain a disaster recovery plan (DRP) and if XML structures are considered
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important, as missing critical data can disrupt the regular operations of an
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organization.
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