COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-109

Object Relational Mapping Injection

An attacker leverages a weakness present in the database access layer code generated with an Object Relational Mapping (ORM) tool or a weakness in the way that a developer used a persistence framework to inject their own SQL commands to be executed against the underlying database. The attack here is similar to plain SQL injection, except that the application does not use JDBC to directly talk to the database, but instead it uses a data access layer generated by an ORM tool or framework (e.g. Hibernate). While most of the time code generated by an ORM tool contains safe access methods that are immune to SQL injection, sometimes either due to some weakness in the generated code or due to the fact that the developer failed to use the generated access methods properly, SQL injection is still possible.

Abstraction

Detailed

Typical severity

High

Likelihood of attack

Low

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An attacker leverages a weakness present in the database access layer code generated with an Object Relational Mapping (ORM) tool or a weakness in the way that a developer used a persistence framework to inject their own SQL commands to be executed against the underlying database. The attack here is similar to plain SQL injection, except that the application does not use JDBC to directly talk to the database, but instead it uses a data access layer generated by an ORM tool or framework (e.g. Hibernate). While most of the time code generated by an ORM tool contains safe access methods that are immune to SQL injection, sometimes either due to some weakness in the generated code or due to the fact that the developer failed to use the generated access methods properly, SQL injection is still possible.

Execution flow

How does the attack proceed, step by step?

1

Explore

Determine Persistence Framework Used

An attacker tries to determine what persistence framework is used by the application in order to leverage a weakness in the generated data access layer code or a weakness in a way that the data access layer may have been used by the developer.

Techniques used

  • An attacker provides input to the application in an attempt to induce an error screen that reveals a stack trace that gives an indication of the automated data access layer used. Or an attacker may simply make some educated guesses and assume, for instance, that Hibernate is used and try to craft an attack from there.

Probe for ORM Injection vulnerabilities

The attacker injects ORM syntax into user-controllable data inputs of the application to determine if it is possible modify data query structure and content.
2

Exploit

Perform SQL Injection through the generated data access layer

An attacker proceeds to exploit a weakness in the generated data access methods that does not properly separate control plane from the data plan, or potentially a particular way in which developer might have misused the generated code, to modify the structure of the executed SQL queries and/or inject entirely new SQL queries.

Techniques used

  • An attacker uses normal SQL injection techniques and adjusts them to reflect the type of data access layer generation framework used by the application.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • An application uses data access layer generated by an ORM tool or framework
  • An application uses user supplied data in queries executed against the database
  • The separation between data plane and control plane is not ensured, through either developer error or an underlying weakness in the data access layer code generation framework

Skills required

  • Medium: Knowledge of general SQL injection techniques and subtleties of the ORM framework is needed

Resources required

  • None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.

Impact

What does a successful attack lead to?

Modify Data

Affected scopes: Integrity

Unreliable Execution

Affected scopes: Availability

Read Data

Affected scopes: Confidentiality

Gain Privileges

Affected scopes: Confidentiality, Access Control, Authorization

Execute Unauthorized Commands

Affected scopes: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

1
Remember to understand how to use the data access methods generated by the ORM tool / framework properly in a way that would leverage the built-in security mechanisms of the framework
2
Ensure to keep up to date with security relevant updates to the persistence framework used within your application.

Real world

MITRE example instances

Example instance 1Detail
When using Hibernate, it is possible to use the session.find() method to run queries against the database. This is an overloaded method that provides facilities to perform binding between the supplied user data and place holders in the statically defined query. However, it is also possible to use the session.find() method without using any of these query binding overloads, hence effectively concatenating the user supplied data with rest of the SQL query, resulting in a possibility for SQL injection. While the framework may provide mechanisms to use methods immune to SQL injections, it may also contain ways that are not immune that may be chosen by the developer.
CAPEC-109: Object Relational Mapping Injection — DayBreach Saldırı Sözlüğü · DayBreach