CWE

Information Exposure Through WSDL File

ID: 651		Date: (C)2012-05-14   (M)2022-10-10
Type: weakness		Status: INCOMPLETE
Abstraction Type: Variant

Description

The Web services architecture may require exposing a WSDL file that contains information on the publicly accessible services and how callers of these services should interact with them (e.g. what parameters they expect and what types they return).

Extended Description

An information exposure may occur if any of the following apply:

The WSDL file is accessible to a wider audience than intended.

The WSDL file contains information on the methods/services that should not be publicly accessible or information about deprecated methods. This problem is made more likely due to the WSDL often being automatically generated from the code.

Information in the WSDL file helps guess names/locations of methods/resources that should not be publicly accessible.

Enabling Factors for Exploitation
The system employs a web services architecture.
WSDL is used to advertise information information on how to communicate with the service.

Applicable Platforms
Language Class: All
Technology Class: Web-Server
Technology Class: Often

Time Of Introduction

• Architecture and Design
• Implementation
• Operation

Common Consequences

Scope	Technical Impact	Notes
Confidentiality	Read application data	The attacker may find sensitive information located in the WSDL file.

Detection Methods
None

Potential Mitigations

Phase	Strategy	Description	Effectiveness	Notes
		Limit access to the WSDL file as much as possible. If services are provided only to a limited number of entities, it may be better to provide WSDL privately to each of these entities than to publish WSDL publicly.
		Make sure that WSDL does not describe methods that should not be publicly accessible. Make sure to protect service methods that should not be publicly accessible with access controls.
		Do not use method names in WSDL that might help an adversary guess names of private methods/resources used by the service.

Relationships

Related CWE	Type	View	Chain
CWE-651 ChildOf CWE-895	Category	CWE-888

Demonstrative Examples
None

Observed Examples

1. : The WSDL for a service providing information on the best price of a certain item exposes the following method: float getBestPrice(String ItemID) An attacker might guess that there is a method setBestPrice (String ItemID, float Price) that is available and invoke that method to try and change the best price of a given item to their advantage. The attack may succeed if the attacker correctly guesses the name of the method, the method does not have proper access controls around it and the service itself has the functionality to update the best price of the item.

For more examples, refer to CVE relations in the bottom box.

White Box Definitions
None

Black Box Definitions
None

Taxynomy Mappings
None

References:
None