Chapter 10: Hacking Web Servers
30. What type of useful tools can a security tester find available in both Firefox and Chrome Web browsers?
Much like ISECOM, Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is an open, not-for-profit foundation
dedicated to finding and fighting the causes of software vulnerabilities. OWASP publishes the Ten Most
Critical Web Application Security Vulnerabilities paper that has been built into the Payment Card Industry
(PCI) Data Security Standard.
32. Dynamic Web pages need special components for displaying information that changes depending on user
input or information obtained from a back-end server. What kind of components can Web pages use to achieve
this?
To do this, dynamic Web pages can use the tag, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Active Server Pages
(ASP), PHP, ColdFusion, JavaScript, and database connector strings, such as Open Database Connector
(ODBC).
33. What is the main difference between HTML pages and Active Server Pages (ASP)?
The main difference between HTML pages and Active Server Pages (ASP) is that with ASP, developers can
display HTML documents to users on the fly. That is, when a user requests a Web page, one is created at that
time. ASP is technology that enables developers to create dynamic, interactive Web pages and uses scripting
languages, such as JScript (Microsoft’s version of JavaScript) or VBScript.
34. Why should security professionals have at least a little knowledge about the Apache Web Server?
Apache Web Server is said to run on more than twice as many Web servers as IIS, so some familiarity with
this Web server can be helpful in the security-testing profession. Apache has important advantages over the
competition: It works in just about any *nix platform as well as in Windows, and it’s free.
35. As a security professional, what should you do after identifying that a Web server you are testing is using
PHP?
After you have identified the Web server as using PHP, you should investigate further for specific
vulnerabilities. Several versions of PHP running on Linux can be exploited because of a line in the Php.ini
file: The line file_uploads=on permits file uploads; however, this setting might allow a remote attacker to run
arbitrary code with elevated privileges. The best solution is to upgrade to the latest version of PHP, but if that’s
not possible, change the line to file_uploads=off.
36. What is ColdFusion and which company owns the rights to ColdFusion?
ColdFusion is a server-side scripting language used to develop dynamic Web pages. Created by Allaire
Corporation, it’s now owned by Adobe Systems, Inc., ColdFusion it integrates Web browser, Web server, and
database technologies. It uses its proprietary tags written in ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), and Web
applications written in CFML can contain other client technologies, such as HTML and JavaScript.