Cатсн²² (in)sесuяitу / ChrisJohnRiley

Since early 2012 I’ve been working on a simple theory…

The Theory:

By varying [response|status] codes, it should be possible to slow down attackers and automated scanners.

If you’ve met me at a conference any time in the last year I’ve probably talked about it at length and bored the hell out of you (sorry about that BTW).

After researching a number of aspects of this theory I put forward a presentation for BSidesLondon to talk about my findings and how it might be applied to application defense.

The topic can be a little complex due to the various ways browsers handle [response|status] codes. Even within a specific browser the handling of different content types varies. JavaScript is a prime example of that. Where as a browser will happily show you a webpage received with a 404 “Not Found” code, the same browser may not accept active script content with the same code.

During testing I also discovered a couple of interesting issues with Proxy servers that could be used by attackers to expose credentials… as well as some very interesting browser quirks that are probably only interesting to a handful of people. Still, I like edge-case stuff, it’s weird and that suits me just right 😉

BSidesLondon Abstract

On the surface most common browsers (user agents) all look the same, function the same, and deliver web content to the user in a relatively uniformed fashion. Under the surface however, the way specific user agents handle traffic varies in a number of interesting ways. This variation allows for intelligent and skilled defenders to play with attackers and scripted attacks in a way that most normal users will never even see.
This talk will attempt to show that differences in how user agents handle web server responses can be used to improve the defensive posture of a website. Further examples will be given that show specially crafted responses can disrupt common automated attack methods and cause issues for casual attackers and wide scale scanning of websites

If the topic is something that interests you (and I’m sure there’s a lot more research to be done here) feel free to take a snoop at the slides… The talk was recorded also, so keep an eye on the BSidesLondon website and twitter feed for information on the video/audio release.

Links:

• Some thoughts on HTTP response codes –> HERE
• Privoxy Proxy Aauthentication Credential Exposure [cve-2013-2503] –> HERE
• mitm-proxy scripts used in testing –> HERE