Hello Everyone

In my last write-up, I wrote about web-cache deception that leads to information leakage of any personal user’s info.

This time, I got a Web cache deception attack which allows me to steal token header, user-id and further can be used for API endpoint.

This bug I have discovered on private bounty program.

User Interaction Required - Only one time.

[Note: At the end of this write-up, please go through Key Points :) ]

Let’s jump to the main part

While I was trying to understand the mechanism of their Web App, it turns out that for every interaction like upload, fetching inbox content and other settings functionality, they use API endpoint with auth token header to perform the operation along with user id.

let’s just say www.example.com was their main domain and ww4.example.com was another API domain which was performing the operation.

So, I was intercepting the request of www.example.com and in the response header, I saw X-caches-status as HIT.

But to be sure more, I tried to inject random endpoint like bb.jpg, aa.css and it was not giving an error like format not found error.

So, I injected the endpoint like example.com/aa.css, then in response, I was redirected to 404 error page something like this:

So, I tried to visit this same page in incognito mode, and then view source code, but there was no personal info disclosure, only account name.

However, I tried to read the source code and down below, I got the token header, access-key and user encrypted ID cached in the endpoint.

So, the above page has cached the more important parameters than personal information.

But wait, I was thinking can we perform API endpoint attack using cached parameters?

In order for API endpoint to fetch and upload contents, you only need three parameters:

User ID

X-access-token

X-app-key

So, I got a perfect condition scenario but deep down inside, I was still wondering whether these cached parameters will be validated in API endpoint or not.

So, I tried to intercept the request API endpoint in guest endpoint and it was

So, I intercepted the request in guest mode and you can notice in Access token, it’s mentioned “guest” mode.

Here comes the next part:

So, now I modify the API endpoint to fetch pending request in inbox using the API endpoint with cached parameter injection (userid and token).

and the response was

So, I was finally able to retrieve the info like pending inbox request from API endpoint using the previous cached token parameter like inbox pending request.

This is just for fetching inbox content info, what further attacks I could do — I was also able to do POST method in Upload profile picture functionality using cache token, user-id.

Finally, I used API endpoint to perform unauthorized profile picture upload using cached parameters.

After successfully able to retrieve info and modify some settings, I was like time to create a report ^_^

Response and Reaction

Submitted the report to the company, they rewarded me around $250. It’s because the company is newly launched and their maximum bounty was $300. They also asked me how we can mitigate, Interaction was so awesome I felt like I was part of their Team. :)

I was happy because I was able to combine attacks up-to endpoint and fully demonstrate the impact.

Key Points