Parameter pollution vulnerabilities detection study based on tree edit distance

Abstract

A new web attack pattern called HTTP Parameter Pollution has been presented in recent years. The harm and detection method about HPP has become a hot topic in the field of web application security. In the paper, we started with analyzing the HPP attack pattern, researched on the necessary conditions and the potential harm of attack, pointed that the determination of parameter precedence is a prerequisite for the implementation and testing of such attacks, and proposed determination method for parameter priority based on tree edit distance to provide the necessary support for HPP vulnerabilities detection. As well as, we developed different detection methods for the difference of parameters between URL and the page. Finally the detection system for HPP vulnerability was realized, and some vulnerabilities have been discovered in real world. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.