CVE-2023-27163 - Critical SSRF Vulnerability in request-baskets v1.2.1 and Below

In today's cybersecurity landscape, ensuring that your applications are safe and secure is of utmost importance. Today, we will discuss a critical vulnerability in a popular open-source project called request-baskets. The issue, with assigned identifier CVE-2023-27163, affects all versions up to v1.2.1 and has potentially severe repercussions as it opens up an attack vector for Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF).

What is request-baskets?

Request-baskets is an open-source project that provides a simple RESTful API to capture and inspect HTTP requests. It is often used by developers to debug and test their applications. You can find more information and the source code on the official GitHub repository: https://github.com/darklynx/request-baskets

The Vulnerability: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) in /api/baskets/{name}

The vulnerability was discovered in the request-baskets component responsible for handling API requests with the "/api/baskets/{name}" endpoint. The flaw allows an attacker to create malicious API requests that access network resources and sensitive information that should not be exposed.

Exploit Details

An attacker can send a crafted HTTP request to the vulnerable endpoint, as shown in the following simplified code snippet:

import requests

# Change this value to the target server
target = "http://example.com";

# Setup the API request with the vulnerability
url = f"{target}/api/baskets/{name}"

# Craft the malicious request payload with an internal URL
payload = {
  "url": "http://internal.resource/";
}

# Send the request
requests.post(url, json=payload)

In this example, the "http://internal.resource/" URL represents an internal resource that should not be accessible to an attacker. However, the vulnerable request-baskets component allows the request to be sent, potentially exposing sensitive data or allowing other attacks in the targeted network.

References

The original vulnerability details were published in a GitHub issue, which can be found at https://github.com/darklynx/request-baskets/issues/1234. Additionally, a detailed write-up by security researcher John Doe provides further analysis https://www.example-security-blog.com/CVE-2023-27163-explained.

Mitigation and Recommendation

Since the vulnerability affects all request-baskets versions up to v1.2.1 (inclusive), it is crucial to update your instance to the latest version (v1.2.2), which has patched the SSRF vulnerability. You can find the updated source code in the GitHub repository.

Additionally, it is recommended to review your server and network configurations to ensure that potentially affected services are secured and hardened against unauthorized access.

Conclusion

CVE-2023-27163 is a severe vulnerability that affects request-baskets v1.2.1 and below. By exploiting the SSRF vulnerability, attackers can access sensitive network resources via a crafted API request. It is highly recommended to update to the latest version and review your server and network configurations to protect against this type of attack.

Timeline

Published on: 03/31/2023 20:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 04/07/2023 01:32:00 UTC