Source Code Disclosure

medium Web App Scanning Plugin ID 98098

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Synopsis

Description

Scanner has detected server-side source code within the server's response.

A modern web application will be reliant on several different programming languages. These languages can be broken up in two flavours. These are client-side languages (such as those that run in the browser -- like JavaScript) and server-side languages (which are executed by the server -- like ASP, PHP, JSP, etc.) to form the dynamic pages (client-side code) that are then sent to the client.

Because all server side code should be executed by the server, it should never be seen by the client, however in some scenarios, using crafted requests it is possible to force the server into displaying the source code of the application without executing it. As the server-side source code often contains sensitive information, such as database connection strings or details into the application workflow, this can be extremely risky.

Cyber-criminals will attempt to discover pages that either accidentally or forcefully allow the server-side source code to be disclosed, to assist in discovering further vulnerabilities or sensitive information.

Solution

It is important that input sanitisation be conducted to prevent application files (ASP, JSP, PHP or config files) from being called. It is also important that the file system permissions are correctly configured and that all unused files are removed from the web root. If this is not an option, then the vulnerable file should be removed from the server.