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Application Security Cheat Sheet
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Web Application
Abusing HTTP hop-by-hop Request Headers
Broken Authentication
Command Injection
Content Security Policy
Cookie Security
CORS Misconfiguration
File Upload Vulnerabilities
GraphQL Vulnerabilities
HTML Injection
HTTP Header Security
HTTP Request Smuggling
Improper Rate Limits
JavaScript Prototype Pollution
JSON Web Token Vulnerabilities
OAuth 2.0 Vulnerabilities
Race Condition
Server Side Request Forgery
Web Cache Poisoning
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File Upload Vulnerabilities

Abuse archives

There are weaknesses that exist when a file upload functionality accepts and extracts archives without proper security measures in place.
tar and zip allow you to include symlinks in tarballs/archives they generated. If an application does not properly validate the content of the archives, it can lead to arbitrary reading/writing of files.
References:

Abusing tar permissions

If an application uses Unix tar command to extract .tar files, removes symlinks and accesses subdirectory directly, you can try to bypass the symlink removing process with tar permissions. Unix tar command preserves the unix permissions assigned to it while creating the archive. If you create a parent directory which no one have read permissions (set chmod to 300) while creating the subdirectory with the complete permissions (set the chmod to 700), you can include symlinks inside the subdirectory that will not be found during the symlink removing process, but will be found when accessing directly since the subdirectory has read permissions.
$ mkdir parent
$ cd parent
$ tar cf a.tar . --mode=300
$ mkdir sub
$ cd sub
$ ln -s /etc/passwd file.txt
$ cd ..
$ tar -rf a.tar sub
Reading local files by abusing tar permissions in Gitlab Imports (Possibly leading to RCE) (#55501) · Issues · GitLab.org / GitLab FOSS
GitLab

Zip Slip

The Zip Slip takes advantage of zips that may contain files with specifically placed payloads set to the names, that once extracted, lead to a path traversal, and can write any file to any directory the webserver has access to. It can affect numerous archive formats, including tar, jar, war, cpio, apk, rar and 7z.
GitHub - ptoomey3/evilarc: Create tar/zip archives that can exploit directory traversal vulnerabilities
GitHub
GitHub - snyk/zip-slip-vulnerability: Zip Slip Vulnerability (Arbitrary file write through archive extraction)
GitHub

Abuse filename

Path as filename

Try to use different kinds of path as a filename:
  • Absolute path, for example filename=/etc/passwd
  • Relative path, for example filename=../../../../../../etc/passwd
  • UNC path, for example filename=\\attacker-website.com\file.png

Injections via filename

Try to exploit command injection or sqli via filename, for example a$(whoami)z.png, a`whoami`z.png or a';select+sleep(10);--z.png

SSRF via filename

Try to send URL as filename to get blind SSRF, for example filename=https://172.17.0.1/internal/file. You can also try to change type="file" to type="url" within a request.

DoS via large filename

Try to upload a file with large name, sometimes it leads to DoS.
References:

Bypass restrictions

Content-Type

Try to change a Content-Type value:
  • Allowed MIME-type + disallowed extension
  • Disallowed MIME-type + allowed extension
  • Remove Content-Type
  • Send Content-Type twice within request with allowed and disallowed MIME-types

Magic bytes

If an application use a file's magic bytes to deduce the Content-type, you can try to bypass security measures by forging the magic bytes of an allowed file. For example, if GIF images are allowed, you can forge a GIF image's magic bytes GIF89a to make the server think we are sending it a valid GIF.
References:

Extension

Try to change a file extension:
  • Less-common extension, such as .phtml
  • Double extension, such as .jpg.svg or .svg.jpg
  • Extension with a delimeter, such as %0a, %09, %0d, %00, #, etc. For example, file.png%00.svg or file.png\x0d\x0a.svg
  • Empty extension, for example file.
  • Extension with varied capitalization, such as .sVG
  • Try to cut allowed extension with max filename length.
  • Empty filename, for example .svg
  • Right-to-left override, for example file.%E2%80%AEphp.jpg, see Report: RTL override symbol not stripped from file names​
  • Send filename twice within request with allowed and disallowed extensions, for example filename="file.png";filename="file.svg"

Invalid regex

Windows dots

Within Windows, when a file is created with a trailing full-stop, the file is saved without said trailing character, leading to potential blacklist bypasses on Windows file uploads.
For example, if an application is rejecting files that end in .aspx, you can upload a file called shell.aspx.. Now this filename will bypass the blacklist, as .aspx != .aspx., but upon saving the file to the server, Windows will cut out the trailing ., leaving shell.aspx.

Windows ADS

An Alternate Data Stream (ADS) is a little-known feature of the NTFS file system. It has the ability of forking data into an existing file without changing its file size or functionality. In other words, ADS allows you to hide a file inside another one.
The following example hides copy of calc.exe inside file.txt:
C:> echo Somedata > file.txt
C:> type file.txt
Somedata
C:> type c:\windows\system32\calc.exe > file.txt:calc.exe
To start the hidden calc.exe copy, you can run the following command:
C:> start c:\file.txt:calc.exe
References:

Third-party vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities in image processors

GitHub - barrracud4/image-upload-exploits: This repository contains various media files for known attacks on web applications processing media files. Useful for penetration tests and bug bounty.
GitHub
Resources:
  • Zeronights 2021: Emil Lerner – HotPics

FFmpeg

Server Side Request Forgery
cheat-sheets

ExifTool

ExifTool versions 7.44 through 12.23 inclusive are vulnerable to a local command execution vulnerability when processing djvu files. If an application is accepting uploaded files, which are passed to ExifTool, it can lead to RCE.
References:

Configuration files

Some servers/frameworks work with configuration files at runtime to define various settings and restrictions. The most famous examples are the the Apache httpd/Tomcat .htaccess and the ASP.NET/IIS web.config files. You can check your server/framework and try to upload particular config to bypass some security measures or even execute code.
References:

Potentially dangerous files

ASP

Try to upload on an IIS server files with the asp, ashx, asmx, asa, aspx, cer or xamlx extensions to get RCE.
References:

Adobe ColdFusion

Try to upload ColdFusion files with the cfm, cfml, cfc or dbm extensions to get RCE.

Adobe ColdFusion SSRF

Server Side Request Forgery
cheat-sheets

JSP

Try to upload JSP files with the jsp, jspx, jsw, jsv, or jspf extensions to get RCE.

Perl

Try to upload perl files with the pl, pm, cgi, or lib extensions to get RCE.

SVG

GitHub - allanlw/svg-cheatsheet: A cheatsheet for exploiting server-side SVG processors.
GitHub

XML

Try to upload valid XML file with external entities to get XXE.
References:

Race condition

Race Condition
cheat-sheets

File upload race condition

If an application uploads a file directly to a target folder before the file passes validation, you can abuse this behavior by using race condition.
Suppose file upload has the following flow:
  1. 1.
    Upload file to a target folder
  2. 2.
    Validate file
  3. 3.
    If the validation fails, remove the file. Otherwise, send the link to a user
You can use race condition to fetch the file between steps 1 and 3 while the validation is in progress.
References:

URL-based file upload race condition

If an application allows users to upload a file by providing a URL and fetches the file for validation to a user-accessible folder, you can abuse this behavior by using race condition.
Suppose file upload has the following flow:
  1. 1.
    Receive the URL from a user
  2. 2.
    Create a local copy for validation within a user-accessible folder
  3. 3.
    Validate file
  4. 4.
    If the validation fails, reject the URL. Otherwise, send the link to a user
You can use race condition to fetch the file between steps 2 and 4 while the validation is in progress.
References:

SSRF via HTTP range requests

If an application download a file from a user-provided link with HTTP range requests you can try to redirect the request one of the chunks to an internal server.
References:

References

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GraphQL Vulnerabilities
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On this page
Abuse archives
Abusing symlinks
Abusing tar permissions
Zip Slip
Abuse filename
Path as filename
Injections via filename
SSRF via filename
DoS via large filename
Bypass restrictions
Content-Type
Magic bytes
Extension
Invalid regex
Windows dots
Windows ADS
Third-party vulnerabilities
Vulnerabilities in image processors
FFmpeg
ExifTool
Configuration files
Potentially dangerous files
ASP
Adobe ColdFusion
JSP
Perl
SVG
XML
Race condition
File upload race condition
URL-based file upload race condition
SSRF via HTTP range requests
References