CAPEC Details
Name Session Credential Falsification through Manipulation
Likelyhood of attack Typical severity
High Medium
Summary An attacker manipulates an existing credential in order to gain access to a target application. Session credentials allow users to identify themselves to a service after an initial authentication without needing to resend the authentication information (usually a username and password) with every message. An attacker may be able to manipulate a credential sniffed from an existing connection in order to gain access to a target server.
Prerequisites The targeted application must use session credentials to identify legitimate users.
Solutions
Related Weaknesses
CWE ID Description
CWE-472 External Control of Assumed-Immutable Web Parameter
CWE-565 Reliance on Cookies without Validation and Integrity Checking
Related CAPECS
CAPEC ID Description
CAPEC-196 An attacker creates a false but functional session credential in order to gain or usurp access to a service. Session credentials allow users to identify themselves to a service after an initial authentication without needing to resend the authentication information (usually a username and password) with every message. If an attacker is able to forge valid session credentials they may be able to bypass authentication or piggy-back off some other authenticated user's session. This attack differs from Reuse of Session IDs and Session Sidejacking attacks in that in the latter attacks an attacker uses a previous or existing credential without modification while, in a forging attack, the attacker must create their own credential, although it may be based on previously observed credentials.