DOM based cookie bomb
X
X (Formerly Twitter)
Submitted None
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Reported by
filedescriptor
Vulnerability Details
Technical details and impact analysis
Hi,
I would like to report an issue that allows attackers to plant a "cookie bomb" on a victim's browser, so that the victim will be unable to access any Twitter services.
##PoC
1. Go to http://innerht.ml/pocs/twitter-dom-based-cookie-bomb/
2. Click on the "DoS" link
3. Wait for a moment
4. Now Twitter will be unaccessible
Video demonstration
https://vimeo.com/125377697 (password: c4)
##Details
Let's examine the very first script block on https://twitter.com:
```javascript
function d(a) {
...
var b = document.referrer || "none",
d = "ev_redir_" + encodeURIComponent(a) + "=" + b + "; path=/";
document.cookie = d;
...
}
...
window.location.hash != "" && d(window.location.hash.substr(1).toLowerCase())
```
In short, it sets a cookie with hash as the name and referrer as the value. The problems are that there is no length limitation setting the cookie and referrer is not properly escaped (i.e. the ";" character). Thus, the attacker can craft a long enough cookie to *.twitter.com and manipulate the referrer value to add additional cookie attributes to make the attack persistent. All requests to Twitter will then result in HTTP 431, causing a DoS on the client side.
Report Details
Additional information and metadata
State
Closed
Substate
Resolved
Submitted
Weakness
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption