Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Squashed bug opened EVERY PayPal account to hijacking

Yet another tale of incredibly crocked software

PayPal has plugged a huge hole that exposed every account to hijacking.

The cross-site request forgery (CSRF) flaw reported by Egyptian researcher Yassar H Ali allowed attackers access to any PayPal account of their choosing if they were capable of convincing a target to click a link.

A PayPal spokesperson confirmed the flaw to Vulture South adding it had no evidence accounts had been compromised.

"Through the PayPal Bug Bounty Program, one of our security researchers recently made us aware of a way to bypass PayPal's Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Protection Authorization System when logging onto PayPal.com," the spokesperson said. "Our team worked quickly to address this vulnerability, and we have already fixed the issue."

The "single-click" hack allowed attackers to link their email addresses to victim accounts, reset passwords and overtake accounts because Paypal authentication tokens were made reusable.

Cross-site request forgeries were common attacks against authenticated website victims that handed bad guys the capabilities of log in users such as password changes and fund transfers.

Ali earned US$10,000 for the disclosure and said the captured authentication token was valid for all PayPal accounts.

"After a deep investigation I found out that the CSRF auth is reusable for a specific user email address or username," Ali said in an advisory.

"This means attackers who found any of these CSRF tokens can [imitate] any logged in user.

[Attackers] can obtain the CSRF auth by intercepting the POST request from a page that provides an auth token before the logging-in process."

The researcher published a proof of concept video showcasing the now closed attack vector. ®

 

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like