cve.bz

CAPEC-170

Web Application Fingerprinting

Low severityHigh likelihoodDetailed pattern

An attacker sends a series of probes to a web application in order to elicit version-dependent and type-dependent behavior that assists in identifying the target. An attacker could learn information such as software versions, error pages, and response headers, variations in implementations of the HTTP protocol, directory structures, and other similar information about the targeted service. This information can then be used by an attacker to formulate a targeted attack plan. While web application fingerprinting is not intended to be damaging (although certain activities, such as network scans, can sometimes cause disruptions to vulnerable applications inadvertently) it may often pave the way for more damaging attacks.

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Show the promptExplain the attack pattern CAPEC-170: Web Application Fingerprinting: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/170.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/170?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.

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How the attack unfolds

  1. Explore

    The attacker looks for a way in.

    1. [Request fingerprinting] Use automated tools or send web server specific commands to web server and wait for server's response.

      1 technique
      • Use automated tools or send web server specific commands to web server and then receive server's response.

  2. Experiment

    They probe what they found.

    1. [Increase the accuracy of server fingerprinting of Web servers] Attacker usually needs to send several different commands to accurately identify the web server. Attacker can also use automated tools to send requests to the server. The responses of the server may be different in terms of protocol behavior.

      3 techniques
      • Observe the ordering of the several HTTP response headers. The ordering of the header of each server may have unique identities.
      • Send bad requests or requests of nonexistent pages to the server.
      • Attacker takes existing automated tools to recognize the type and the version of the web server in use.

    2. [Identify Web Application Software] After the web server platform software has been identified, the attacker start to identify web application technologies such as ASP, .NET, PHP and Java on the server.

      4 techniques
      • Examine the file name extensions in URL, for example .php indicates PHP script interfaced with Apache server.
      • Examine the HTTP Response Headers. This may leak information about software signatures
      • Examine Cookies that may contain server's software information.
      • Check error pages.

    3. [Identify Backend Database Version] Determining the database engine type can assist attackers' attempt to successfully execute SQL injection. Some database API such as ODBC will show a database type as part of the driver information when reporting an error.

      1 technique
      • Use tools to send bogus SQL query to the server and check error pages.

Prerequisites

  • Any web application can be fingerprinted. However, some configuration choices can limit the useful information an attacker may collect during a fingerprinting attack.

Skills required

  • Low skill

    Attacker knows how to send HTTP request, SQL query to a web application.

Resources required

  • While simple fingerprinting can be accomplished with only a web browser, for more thorough fingerprinting an attacker requires a variety of tools to collect information about the target. These tools might include protocol analyzers, web-site crawlers, and fuzzing tools. Footprinting a service adequately may also take a few days if the attacker wishes the footprinting attempt to go undetected.

Consequences

What a successful attack can lead to
ImpactAffectsNote
OtherConfidentialityInformation Leakage

Mitigations

  • Implementation: Obfuscate server fields of HTTP response.

  • Implementation: Hide inner ordering of HTTP response header.

  • Implementation: Customizing HTTP error codes such as 404 or 500.

  • Implementation: Hide URL file extension.

  • Implementation: Hide HTTP response header software information filed.

  • Implementation: Hide cookie's software information filed.

  • Implementation: Appropriately deal with error messages.

  • Implementation: Obfuscate database type in Database API's error message.

Weaknesses it exploits

  • CWE-497 Exposure of Sensitive System Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere

Recent CVEs with these weaknesses

  1. 7.5CVE-2026-123465

    Exposure of Sensitive System Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere vulnerability in myCred myCred mycred allows Retrieve Embedded Sensitive Data.This issue affects myCred: from n/a through 4.0.2.

  2. –CVE-2026-113504

    Apache Airflow's secrets masker stopped descending into nested structures after five levels, so a secret registered with the masker — for example a Connection password or a Variable value — that appeared more than five containers deep unde…

  3. 5.3CVE-2026-121779

    Exposure of Sensitive System Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere vulnerability in YITH YITH WooCommerce Subscription yith-woocommerce-subscription allows Retrieve Embedded Sensitive Data.This issue affects YITH WooCommerce Subscr…

  4. 6.3CVE-2026-108018

    The BigFix MCM admin portal is directly accessible from the internet without VPN or network restriction.  A client-side configuration file discloses non-sensitive environment details. Exposing the configuration file publicly increases the …

  5. 6.9CVE-2026-110390

    Missing authentication in the FlexNet Beacon component of Flexera One and FlexNet Manager Suite allows unauthenticated remote attackers to obtain Beacon policy and targeting information when anonymous web server access is enabled (the defa…

  6. 2.3CVE-2026-109823

    An attacker can read the name of filesystem paths of your application present via Tidewave configuration via /tidewave/connect or via the rendered toolbar. Neither response checks the Host header. A web page that rebinds its own domain to…

  7. 7.4CVE-2026-111079

    A flaw was found in Goose. When the terminal integration feature is enabled, the application captures shell command history and sends it verbatim without sanitization to configured Large Language Model (LLM) provider endpoints during queri…

  8. 5.3CVE-2026-76435

    A vulnerability in Cisco Expressway Series could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to obtain sensitive information from an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient authorization checks of HTTP requests during M…

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Part of

Examples

An attacker sends malformed requests or requests of nonexistent pages to the server. Consider the following H…

An attacker sends malformed requests or requests of nonexistent pages to the server. Consider the following HTTP responses.

Response from Apache 1.3.23

$ nc apache.server.com
80 GET / HTTP/3.0

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 17:12: 37 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.23
Connection: close
Transfer: chunked
Content-Type: text/HTML; charset=iso-8859-1

Response from IIS 5.0

$ nc iis.server.com 80
GET / HTTP/3.0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content-Location: http://iis.example.com/Default.htm
Date: Fri, 01 Jan 1999 20:14: 02 GMT
Content-Type: text/HTML
Accept-Ranges: bytes Last-Modified: Fri, 01 Jan 1999 20:14: 02 GMT
ETag: W/e0d362a4c335be1: ae1
Content-Length: 133

[REF-37]

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