Smashing the State Machine: The True Potential of Web Race Conditions

Security

Unlock the true potential of web race conditions and learn how to manipulate application state with a single packet, exploiting vulnerabilities and achieving high-impact attacks even in robust applications.

Key takeaways

Web race conditions can be exploited to achieve high-impact vulnerabilities, even in applications with robust security measures.
The true potential of web race conditions lies in their ability to manipulate the state of an application, often with a single packet.
A single packet attack can be used to trigger a race condition, allowing an attacker to manipulate the application state and potentially gain unauthorized access.
Web servers often delay requests that are sent too quickly, making it possible to exploit race conditions by carefully timing requests.
The use of TCP and HTTP jitter can be used to create a single packet attack, allowing an attacker to manipulate the application state with a single request.
The Devise framework was vulnerable to a race condition, allowing an attacker to hijack email addresses and gain unauthorized access.
The GitLab email verification process was also vulnerable to a race condition, allowing an attacker to hijack invitations and gain unauthorized access.
The use of locking strategies, such as batching and last byte sync, can help prevent race conditions, but are not foolproof.
Web race conditions can be used to achieve high-impact vulnerabilities, such as arbitrary code execution and data manipulation.
The use of fingerprintable unauthenticated requests can make it easier to identify and exploit race conditions.
The Web Security Academy provides a platform for practicing and exploiting web race conditions.
The true potential of web race conditions lies in their ability to manipulate the state of an application, often with a single packet.

Smashing the State Machine: The True Potential of Web Race Conditions

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