In recent blog posts, we’ve mentioned that PeopleSoft provides a number of security protections out of the box. In this entry, we wanted to go into more detail on this, specifically focusing on what you should know about PeopleSoft and common web application vulnerabilities.
If you hire an organization to perform penetration testing (as any organization deploying PeopleSoft on the public internet should), these are the items that they will primarily focus on.
One of the most important aspects of security within PeopleSoft, is that the platform ensures that security protections are built in globally. As such, PeopleTools differs from other development platforms in the following ways:
So, let’s look at each of the common web vulnerabilities and what PeopleSoft does to remediate them.
Although this should be second nature to anybody deploying a web application, SSL termination is a critical component of ensuring secure data transportation between the end-user and the PeopleSoft system. PeopleSoft has configuration settings specifically for SSL termination and virtual addressing so that all traffic can be sent securely. It also gives organizations the ability to utilize other tiers for SSL termination, such as the load balancer.
Because many web applications access and store data through a relational database, a common attack vector is to inject SQL into edit boxes, URLs, or other user enterable fields to bypass application logic and talk directly to the database. This could allow an unauthorized user to:
The following comic — “Bobby Tables” — pokes fun at this technique:
PeopleTools mitigates this vector through its definitional development infrastructure. When a page is developed in PeopleTools, the developer is rarely writing SQL, but placing the fields on the page. PeopleTools will generate the SQL with the appropriate size, type, and encoding.
However, PeopleTools does not restrict developers from writing their own SQL, frequently using the infamous SQL-Exec PeopleCode function. Therefore, it’s important that organizations incorporate strong change management techniques to review in detail any places where customizations are made with SQLExec functions.
Cross-site scripting occurs when an unauthorized site or form controls a page or form in your application, making unauthorized updates. This is commonly done with JavaScript, but can also be accomplished with other techniques.
PeopleTools protects against cross-site scripting by embedding a random token in each PeopleSoft page that is validated by servlets on the PeopleSoft web server. If the form doesn’t have the token or the token is rejected, the traffic is also rejected.
This vulnerability existed in very early PeopleTools versions (circa 2000), but was remediated quickly platform-wide with a PeopleTools update once the threat vector was discovered and hasn’t been a risk for at least 10 years.
Content spoofing and injection is a whole category of techniques for making unexpected modifications to HTTP traffic between the browser and the application. Examples include:
A common technique followed by the bad guys is to install a proxy between the browser and the application, capture traffic, modify the different aspects of the traffic, and play back the results.
PeopleTools protects against spoofing and injection by acting as a single controller that issues and processes the HTTP traffic. Whenever an unexpected event occurs (such as an unexpected URL), it will either issue a security error (such as You are not authorized to access this component) or will terminate your session.
That said, there are techniques that some implementation decisions that customers can make that would allow an organization to circumvent these protections. These would include the following:
Directory indexing is a threat vector where a person gets a web server to disclose the list of files and folders on it. In some cases, this can be used to determine how the application works behind the scenes, even to point of looking at the code that is running on the server.
PeopleSoft provides a few protections against this:
The last threat vector we will discuss. From the context of this discussion, we will be covering information leakage as it relates to an external attacker trying to learn about how the system operates. Information Leakage can also be discussed from the perspective of an authorized user’s use of sensitive application data, which will be discussed in a future post.
Anybody familiar with PeopleSoft’s Control-J function is familiar with type of data that can be leaked. This page provides information about the version of PeopleTools, the PeopleSoft application, and the ports that are being used on the app servers. At the weblogic level, the weblogic console provides information about the java version being run, etc. Although it is great for troubleshooting issues in a development or test environment, an external person can utilize this to research known vulnerabilities for the versions being utilized to plan an attack.
Fortunately, PeopleSoft provides a configuration option in the web profile to turn off disclosure of this information, and the default PROD web profile has this setting made appropriately.
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