CAPEC-476: Signature Spoofing by Misrepresentation
Description
An attacker exploits a weakness in the parsing or display code of the recipient software to generate a data blob containing a supposedly valid signature, but the signer's identity is falsely represented, which can lead to the attacker manipulating the recipient software or its victim user to perform compromising actions.
- Likelihood of attack
- Low
- Typical severity
- High
- Abstraction
- DetailedA low-level, detailed pattern, often for a particular technology.
Mechanism of attack: Engage in Deceptive Interactions
Prerequisites
- Recipient is using signature verification software that does not clearly indicate potential homographs in the signer identity.Recipient is using signature verification software that contains a parsing vulnerability, or allows control characters in the signer identity field, such that a signature is mistakenly displayed as valid and from a known or authoritative signer.
Skills required
- HighAttacker needs to understand the layout and composition of data blobs used by the target application.
- HighTo discover a specific vulnerability, attacker needs to reverse engineer signature parsing, signature verification and signer representation code.
- HighAttacker may be required to create malformed data blobs and know how to insert them in a location that the recipient will visit.
Mitigations
- Ensure the application is using parsing and data display techniques that will accurately display control characters, international symbols and markings, and ultimately recognize potential homograph attacks.