Re: Website "Scanner"

[Chris Wysopal <cwysopal () atstake com>]

What does legality have to do with it?  Is it technically possible or 
not?  Are there tools freely available to do it or not?  Plenty of 
things are illegal to do with security tools if you are not the owner of 
the system or authorized by the owner of the system.  But these same  
tools can be used by penetration testers to demonstrate why a site owner 
shouldn't rely on obscurity of filenames or paths.

I am also not convinced that accessing a file that is not explicitly 
linked from other published files on a web server is illegal in the 
first place.  They have been cases of people guessing URLs for upcoming 
corporate press releases, finding prepublished information and sending 
it to reporters.  I have never heard of charges being filed in any of 
these cases.

Cheers,

Chris


Nelson Sampaio Araujo Junior wrote:

> Well,
>
> That sounds you're not doing something legal with it. If you are the owner
> of the server/system, just dir or list them. Another hint is that if the
> administrator has disabled the Index option, its probably because you can't
> do it (legally speaking).
>
> - Nelson
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <backed.up.by.2048.bit.encryption () hushmail com>
> To: <sullo () cirt net>
> Cc: <webappsec () securityfocus com>; <vuln-dev () securityfocus com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 3:22 PM
> Subject: Re: Website "Scanner"
>
>
>  
>
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 14:21:16 -0800 sullo () cirt net wrote:
> >
> >    
> >
> > > 2) take all the files an mix them with all the directories from
> > > the scan
> > > database, so that:
> > > /dir1/file1.html
> > > /dir2/file2.html
> > > /dir3/file3.html
> > > turns into requests for
> > > /dir1/file1.html
> > > /dir1/file2.html
> > > /dir1/file3.html
> > > /dir2/file1.html
> > > /dir2/file2.html
> > > /dir2/file3.html
> > > /dir3/file1.html
> > > /dir3/file2.html
> > > /dir3/file3.html
> > >
> > >      
> > Yes, this is more the idea.  We are not looking for vulns. or xploits,
> >    
> rather trying to intelligently "guess" what else is in that directory.
> Either through dictionary use or other use. For example the following is
> publicly accessible:
>  
>
> > http://www.microsoft.com/new_products/bigwinner2003.html
> >
> > We want to find out what else might be in "new_products" so we plug in say
> >    
> the words "big" "winner" "2003" and let our dictionary spin:
>  
>
> > biggerwinner2003.html - nothing
> > bigloser2002.html - hit
> >
> > etc.
> >
> > Combining the dictionary and words from a specific site or files visible
> >    
> publicly, we try to guess the names of whatever else might be in that
> directory.
>  
>
> > You can do this manually with small time sites and obvious file names e.g.
> >    
> index1.html...index2.html etc. Even annualreport2002.html is visible, try
> annualreport.2003.html
>  
>
> > You can guess and hit on files that are not intended for public
> >    
> consumption.
>  
>
> > If it can be automated with user input for obvious keywords, you probably
> >    
> could strike many interesting and sensitive files in the directory.
>  
>
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: Hush 2.2 (Java)
> > Note: This signature can be verified at https://www.hushtools.com/verify
> >
> > wnUEARECADUFAj4csi8uHGJhY2tlZC51cC5ieS4yMDQ4LmJpdC5lbmNyeXB0aW9uQGh1
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> > =SFPk
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> >
> >
> >
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>