Testing for Browser cache weakness (OTG-AUTHN-006)

This article is part of the new OWASP Testing Guide v4.

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   https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Testing_Guide_v4_Table_of_Contents
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   https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Testing_Project

Brief Summary

In this phase the tester checks that the application correctly instructs the browser to not remember sensitive data.

Description of the Issue

Browsers can store information for purposes of caching and history. Caching is used to improve performance, so that previously displayed information doesn't need to be downloaded again. History mechanisms are used for user convenience, so the user can see exactly what they saw at the time when the resource was retrieved. If sensitive information is displayed to the user (such as their address, credit card details, Social Security Number, or username), then this information could be stored for purposes of caching or history, and therefore retrievable through examining the browser's cache or by simply pressing the browser's "Back" button.

Black Box testing and example

Browser History

Technically, the "Back" button is a history and not a cache (see http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec13.html#sec13.13). The cache and the history are two different entities. However, they share the same weakness of presenting previously displayed sensitive information.

The first and simplest test consists of entering sensitive information into the application and logging out. Then the tester clicks the "Back" button of the browser to check whether previously displayed sensitive information can be accessed whilst unauthenticated.

If by pressing the "Back" button the tester can access previous pages but not access new ones, then it is not an authentication issue, but a browser history issue. If these pages contain sensitive data, it means that the application did not forbid the browser from storing it.

Authentication does not necessarily need to be involved in the testing. For example, when a user enters their email address in order to sign up to a newsletter, this information could be retrievable if not properly handled.

The "Back" button can be stopped from showing sensitive data. This can be done by:

• Delivering the page over HTTPS.
• Setting Cache-Control: must-re-validate

Browser Cache
Here testers check that the application does not leak any sensitive data into the browser cache. In order to do that, they can use a proxy (such as WebScarab) and search through the server responses that belong to the session, checking that for every page that contains sensitive information the server instructed the browser not to cache any data. Such a directive can be issued in the HTTP response headers:

• Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store
• Expires: 0
• Pragma: no-cache

These directives are generally robust, although additional flags may be necessary for the Cache-Control header in order to better prevent persistently linked files on the filesystem. These include:

• Cache-Control: must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0, max-age=0, s-maxage=0

HTTP/1.1:
Cache-Control: no-cache

HTTP/1.0:
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: <past date or illegal value (e.g., 0)>

For instance, if testers are testing an e-commerce application, they should look for all pages that contain a credit card number or some other financial information, and check that all those pages enforce the no-cache directive. If they find pages that contain critical information but that fail to instruct the browser not to cache their content, they know that sensitive information will be stored on the disk, and they can double-check this simply by looking for the page in the browser cache.

The exact location where that information is stored depends on the client operating system and on the browser that has been used. Here are some examples:

• Mozilla Firefox:
  • Unix/Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile-id>/Cache/
  • Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile-id>\Cache

• Internet Explorer:
  • C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

Gray Box testing and example

The methodology for testing is equivalent to the black box case, as in both scenarios testers have full access to the server response headers and to the HTML code. However, with gray box testing, they may have access to account credentials that will allow then to test sensitive pages that are accessible only to authenticated users.

References

Whitepapers

• Caching in HTTP

Tools

• OWASP Zed Attack Proxy
• Firefox add-on CacheViewer2