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BugSec, Cynet Discover Critical Vulnerability
Affecting Privacy of 1-Billion Facebook Messenger Users
‘Originull’ security flaw allows hackers to read messages, view photos sent via web and mobile chat;
potentially affects millions of websites using origin restriction checks.
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — Tuesday, December 13, 2016
BugSec Group Ltd., a leading provider of offensive and defensive security consulting services
(www.bugsec.com), and Cynet, pioneers of the advanced threat detection and response
platform (www.cynet.com), announced today the discovery of the ‘Originull’ privacy hack, a
severe security vulnerability on Facebook Messenger that could also potentially affect millions
of websites that use origin restriction checks. The vulnerability, identified by researcher Ysrael
Gurt, allows attackers to read messages and view photos and other attachments sent by
Messenger both from the web and from the mobile application. It was disclosed to Facebook
via their Bug Bounty program; the Facebook security team investigated and repaired the flawed
component.
The root of the vulnerability was a cross-origin problem in Facebook’s implementation, which
would allow an attacker to bypass Facebook’s origin checks and access messages from an
external website.
“This security flaw meant that the messages of 1-billion active monthly Messenger users were
vulnerable to attackers,” said Stas Volfus, Chief Technology Officer of BugSec.
To exploit the vulnerability, the victim would have to visit a malicious website controlled by the
attacker. From that moment, all messages sent or received by the victim would be accessible to
the attacker.
Said Volfus, “This was an extremely serious issue, not only due to the high number of affected
users, but also because even if the victim sent their messages using another computer or
mobile, they were still completely vulnerable. Facebook realized the potential severity, and
responded quickly, verifying the flaw and fixing it.”
The heart of the issue lies in the fact that Facebook Messenger chats are managed from a
separate server located at the address: {number}-edge-chat.facebook.com. The chat itself runs
on the domain www.facebook.com.
Communication between the JavaScript and the server is done by XML HTTP Request (XHR). In
order to access the data that arrives from 5-edge-chat.facebook.com in JavaScript, Facebook
must add the “Access-Control-Allow-Origin” header with the caller’s origin, and the “AccessControl-Allow-Credentials”
header with “true” value, so that the data is accessible even when
the cookies are sent.
However, when the server received a GET request to the chat domain, it would not include the
“origin” header. In many development languages, nonexistent headers are represented by the
“null” value in place of the requested header. If Facebook expected to receive “null” in the
“origin” header, it would not block requests from this “origin.”
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