Online finance flaw: Ameriprise III - please make it stop

NOTE: This issue was disclosed responsibly and repaired accordingly.

"Now what?", you're probably saying. Ameriprise again? Yep.
I really wasn't trying this time. Really.
There I was, just sitting in the man cave, happily writing an article on version control and regression testing.
As the Ameriprise cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities from August 2009 and January 2010 were in scope for the article topic, due diligence required me to go back and make sure the issue hadn't re-resurfaced. ;-)
I accidentally submitted the JavaScript test payload to the wrong parameter.
What do you think happened next?
Nothing good.
I reduced the test string down to a single tic to validate the simplicity of the shortcoming; same result.



At the least, this is ridiculous information disclosure, if not leaning heavily towards a SQL injection vulnerability.
As we learned the last two times we discussed Ameriprise, the only way to report security vulnerabilities is via their PR department, specifically to Benjamin Pratt, VP of Public Communications.
Alrighty then, issue reported and quickly fixed this time (same day)...until some developer rolls back to an old code branch or turns on debugging again.

We all know the ColdFusion is insanely verbose, particularly when in left in debugging mode, but come now...really?
I really didn't want to know the exact SQL query and trigonometry required to locate an Ameriprise advisor.
Although, after all this, I can comfortably say I won't be seeking an Ameriprise advisor anyway.

Please Mr. Pratt, tell your web application developers to make it stop.

Cheers.

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Directory traversal as a reconnaissance tool

Like most of you, I find malicious or fraudulent online advertisers annoying to say the least.
My typical response, upon receipt of rogue AV pop-ups, or redirects to clearly fraudulent sites, is to "closely scrutinize" the perpetrating site.
This effort often bears fruit as is evident in the following analysis.

My interest was recently peaked when being made aware of a number of related sites committing abuse against a variety of brands; all quite clearly in violation of copyrights and trademarks.
An example, for your consideration: messenger-download.info
After a little exploration it was quickly determined that these cretins seek only to con victims out of credit card data with the promise of illegal downloads for a fee.
Apparently these dbags have been at it for awhile.
They make it look like you're going to receive access to a legitimate offering then they suck you in to freedownloadzone.com.
This, of course, pissed me off, so...off to the races.
A poke here, a tickle there, and voila.../etc/passwd.



This Centos server, running Apache 2.2.3 (very dated), complete with craptastic PHP code, is a textbook lesson in how to not run a web server.
Includes, anyone?



What's lovely about grabbing /etc/passwd with directory traversal (file path traversal, if you prefer) is the discovery of all the additional abusive URLs in play on this same server. Additionally you'll note more than a few culprits, learned to be based in the Phillipines after running their user names through Maltego.
Here's a text dump of the raw /etc/passwd grab.

A little regex parsing produced 256 +/- URLs, all pointing back to freedownloadzone.com, and all GoDaddy domains (shocking!).
Rather than post all the URLs here, for brevity, please refer to the text file.

Lesson to be learned for the bad guys: secure development practices apply to you as well, or the whitehats may come knocking.

A parting thought for freedownloadzone.com, and it's shadow org, helpmedownload.com.
By the way, you have XSS issues too: http://bit.ly/cT2P8F

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toolsmith: Firefox Addons for the Security-minded

Few websites are safe from a hearty probe when I come by for a visit, and I'd be remiss if I didn't share some of my favorite Firefox add-ons utilized as part of said probing.
I opted to do just this as the topic for February's toolsmith, and focused on the expected standards (NoScript, FoxyProxy Standard, BetterPrivacy, and Torbutton) as well as some of my less known favorites.

PassiveRecon
Justin Morehouse’s PassiveRecon will let you dig up everything you ever wanted to know about a given site you may be browsing or analyzing.

WorldIP
WorldIP from WIPmania.com is very cool and very useful.
It provides everything you could every need to know or trace with regard to IP addresses and geolocation.

Groundspeed
I saved the best for last; a new powerhouse in my web app sec arsenal.
Felipe Moreno-Strauch’s Groundspeed, a newer add-on “that allows security testers to manipulate the application user interface to eliminate annoying limitations and client-side controls that interfere with the web application penetration tests.”
And this it does well. ;-)

The article is live for your reading pleasure here.

Cheers and enjoy.

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