CAPEC-271: Schema Poisoning
Description
An adversary corrupts or modifies the content of a schema for the purpose of undermining the security of the target. Schemas provide the structure and content definitions for resources used by an application. By replacing or modifying a schema, the adversary can affect how the application handles or interprets a resource, often leading to possible denial of service, entering into an unexpected state, or recording incomplete data.
- Likelihood of attack
- Low
- Typical severity
- High
- Abstraction
- StandardA specific methodology or technique used in an attack.
Mechanism of attack: Manipulate System Resources
Prerequisites
- Some level of access to modify the target schema.
- The schema used by the target application must be improperly secured against unauthorized modification and manipulation.
Consequences
- Availability
Unreliable Execution; Resource Consumption
A successful schema poisoning attack can compromise the availability of the target system's service by exhausting its available resources.
- Integrity
Modify Data
- Confidentiality
Read Data
Mitigations
- Design: Protect the schema against unauthorized modification.
- Implementation: For applications that use a known schema, use a local copy or a known good repository instead of the schema reference supplied in the schema document.
- Implementation: For applications that leverage remote schemas, use the HTTPS protocol to prevent modification of traffic in transit and to avoid unauthorized modification.