Monitoring and mitigating client-side exploitation of application flaws

• US 9,083,736 B2
• Filed: 01/28/2013
• Issued: 07/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Decime, Jerry Brent, Smith, Cale
• Primary Examiner(s): Desrosiers, Evans
• Application Number:
  US13/751,695
• Publication Number:
  US 20140215605A1
• Time in Patent Office: 897 Days
• Field of Search: 713153-154, 713187-188, 713193-194, 726 2- 3, 726 11- 15, 726 22- 25, 709246-249, 709/206
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/52 during program execution, e.g. stack integrity ; Preventing unwanted data erasure; Buffer overflow
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/57 Certifying or maintaining trusted computer platforms, e.g. secure boots or power-downs, version controls, system software checks, secure updates or assessing vulnerabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/033 Test or assess software
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1416 Event detection, e.g. attack signature detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1441 Countermeasures against malicious traffic countermeasures against attacks on cryptographic mechanisms H04L9/002

Abstract

A system for monitoring and mitigating client-side exploitation of application flaws, the system comprising a client device operating an application, a server communicatively coupled to the client device, and an application flaw service module communicatively coupled to the client device and server in which the application flaw service module receives a request from the client device comprising transactional metadata and inspecting the transactional metadata for malicious content within the request. A method of monitoring and mitigating client-side exploitation of application flaws by adding computer usable program code to the response to a first request from a client, receiving a second request from the client, determining that transactional metadata within the response contains an attack vector, and returning a response to the browser including attack vector countermeasures embedded in the response.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring and mitigating client-side exploitation of application flaws, the system comprising:

a server to operate a first application, the first application to communicate with a client device operating a second application to execute an application flaw script and the application flaw script to cause the client device to produce a first request associated with vulnerability of the first application;

an application flaw service module communicatively coupled to the server, the application flaw service module to;

receive the first request from the client device comprising transactional metadata based on the application flaw script; and

inspect the transactional metadata in a header of the first request for malicious content within the first request by using a header and location inspection module that refers to a filter rules and logic database, wherein prior to the application flaw service module receiving and inspecting the transactional metadata within the first request, the server causes the application flaw script to be added to the transactional metadata of a response to a second request sent by the client device; and

a vulnerability tracking module that tracks attack vectors in the received requests that are detected by the header and location inspection module.

2. The system of claim 1, in which the first request is a GET request and in which the first application is a web-application.

3. The system of claim 1, in which the second application is a browser and the browser on the client device executes the application flaw script and generates the first request to the application flaw service module based on the application flaw script.

4. The system of claim 1, in which the application flaw service module further generates a countermeasure script and response and sends the response to the client device for execution of the countermeasures.

5. A method of monitoring and mitigating client-side exploitation of application flaws comprising:

adding an application flaw script to transactional metadata of a first response to a first request from a client, the computer usable program code to perform a basic inspection of the first response;

receiving a second request from the client, the second request comprising transactional metadata based on the application flaw script;

determining that transactional metadata within the second request contains malicious content, comprising an attack vector, by inspecting the transactional metadata in a header of the second request using a header and location inspection module that refers to a filter rules and logic database;

returning a second response to the second request to the client including attack vector countermeasures embedded in the second response; and

tracking attack vectors in the received requests that are detected by the header and location inspection module.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein tracking the attack vectors comprises tracking a type of vulnerability as evidenced by the attack vector.

7. The method of claim 5, in which the first and second requests are GET requests originating from a client device executing a web-application.

8. The method of claim 5, in which determining that the transactional metadata of the first response contains an attack vector further comprises comparing a number of filter rules and logic from a filter rules and logic database with the content of the request to determine if the first response contains an attack vector.

9. The method of claim 5, in which the computer usable program code added to the beginning of the first response to a first request is executed by a client device and in which the client device generates and sends the second request.

10. A computer program product for monitoring and mitigating client-side exploitation of application flaws, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code to, when executed by a processor, add an application flaw script to transactional metadata of a first response to a first request from a client, the computer usable program code to perform a basic inspection of the first response;

computer usable program code to, when executed by a processor, receive a second request from the client, the second request comprising transactional metadata based on the application flaw script;

computer usable program code to, when executed by a processor, determine that transactional metadata within the second request contains malicious content, comprising an attack vector, by inspecting the transactional metadata in a header of the second request using a header and location inspection module that refers to a filter rules and logic database;

computer usable program code to, when executed by a processor, return a second response to the second request to the client including attack vector countermeasures embedded in the response; and

computer usable program code to, when executed by a processor, tracks attack vectors in the received requests that are detected by the header and location inspection module.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, further comprising computer usable program code to, when executed by a processor, track a type of vulnerability as evidenced by the attack vector.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, in which the computer usable program code to determine that the transactional metadata of the first response contains an attack vector further comprises computer usable program code to, when executed by a processor, compare a number of filter rules and logic from the filter rules and logic database with the content of the request to determine if the first response contains an attack vector.