Extensible Markup Language
Extensible Markup Language
Is it compulsory to have XML prolog in XML documents?
no
Can we validate XML documents against a schema?
yes
How can we specify XML version and encoding in XML document?
XML Prolog
Before we move on to start learning about XXE we'll have to understand what is DTD in XML.
DTD stands for Document Type Definition. A DTD defines the structure and the legal elements and attributes of an XML document.
Let us try to understand this with the help of an example. Say we have a file named note.dtd with the following content:
Now we can use this DTD to validate the information of some XML document and make sure that the XML file conforms to the rules of that DTD. Ex: Below is given an XML document that uses note.dtd
So now let's understand how that DTD validates the XML. Here's what all those terms used in note.dtd mean
How do you define a new ELEMENT?
!ELEMENT
How do you define a ROOT element?
!DOCTYPE
How do you define a new ENTITY?
!ENTITY
The first payload we'll see is very simple. If you've read the previous task properly then you'll understand this payload very easily.
As we can see we are defining a ENTITY called name and assigning it a value feast. Later we are using that ENTITY in our code.
We can also use XXE to read some file from the system by defining an ENTITY and having it use the SYSTEM keyword
Here again, we are defining an ENTITY with the name read but the difference is that we are setting it value to SYSTEM and path of the file.
If we use this payload then a website vulnerable to XXE(normally) would display the content of the file /etc/passwd.
In a similar manner, we can use this kind of payload to read other files but a lot of times you can fail to read files in this manner or the reason for failure could be the file you are trying to read.
XML External Entity - Exploiting
What is the name of the user in /etc/passwd
Change xxe with a more human readable format
Found user falcon
Where is falcon's SSH key located?
What are the first 18 characters for falcon's private key
