Vulnerability name: Unsafe HTTP methods

Aliases

• Web server HTTP Trace/Track method support
• Cross-site tracing vulnerability
• Dangerous HTTP methods

Scope

Although this is a server configuration issue, the client is at risk here

Remediation

Disable TRACE and/or TRACK and/or DEBUG methods

Verification

Using curl , one can employ one of the methods by hand:

curl -sIX TRACE $TARGET | awk 'NR==1 {print $2}'

Vulnerable when: the result is 200

One should expect (not vulnerable) 405 (Method Not Allowed) or 501 (Not Implemented) results.

This executes the TRACE method against $TARGET , and prints out the HTTP status code using awk . The -I parameter fetches the head only, -s stands for silent mode, and -X specifies the method.

The easiest way to test whether a server is vulnerable is by using the script analyze_hosts.py [1].

This script uses curl as well as nmap to perform multiple tests.

analyze_hosts.py --trace http://www.target.com