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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Inter-protocol exploitation. (Discuss) Proposed since October 2009. |
Inter-protocol communication[1] is a security vulnerability in the fundamentals of a network communication protocol. Whilst other protocols are vulnerable, this vulnerability is commonly discussed in the context of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).[2] This attack uses the potential of the two different protocols meaningfully communicating commands and data.
Inter-protocol exploitation can utilize inter-protocol communication to establish the preconditions for launching an Inter-protocol exploit. For example, this process could negotiate the initial authentication communication for a vulnerability in password parsing.
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[edit] Technical Details
The two protocols involved in the vulnerability are termed the carrier and target. The carrier encapsulates the commands and/or data. The target protocol is used for communication to the intended victim service. Inter-protocol communication will be successful if the carrier protocol can encapsulate the commands and/or data sufficiently to meaningfully communicate to the target service.
[edit] Preconditions
Two preconditions need to be met for successful communication across protocols: encapsulation and error tolerance.
[edit] Encapsulation
The carrier protocol must encapsulate the data and commands in a manner that the target protocol can understand. It is highly likely that the resulting data stream with induce parsing errors in the target protocol.
[edit] Error Tolerance
The target protocol be must be sufficiently forgiving of errors. During the Inter-Protocol connection it is likely that a percentage of the communication will be invalid and cause errors. To meet this precondition, the target protocol implementation must continue processing despite these errors.
