CSRF Tutorial For Begineers in DVWA

in this article you will learn Cross-site request forgery attack. For CSRF tutorial I have targeted DVWA and try to bypass low security level.

Cross-site request forgery, also known as one-click attack or session riding and abbreviated as CSRF (sometimes pronounced sea-surf) or XSRF, is a type of malicious exploit of a website where unauthorized commands are transmitted from a user that the website trusts. Unlike cross-site scripting (XSS), which exploits the trust a user has for a particular site, CSRF exploits the trust that a site has in a user's browser.

An attacker may forge a request to log the victim into a target website using the attacker's credentials; this is known as login CSRF. Login CSRF makes various novel attacks possible; for instance, an attacker can later log into the site with his legitimate credentials and view private information.

Reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery

Let’s start!!!

By default the credential set for DVWA is admin: password. As you can see I have used them for login in DVWA.

Now set security level at low and select the bug cross site request forgery as current vulnerability.  Here you see the text fields are given for changing the password of the database for user admin.

 Now open the view source page and copy the highlighted text. 

Then paste above copied HTML code inside a text file.  If you are aware of HTML coding then it will be very to understand the following syntax inside the notepad which will create a form to reset the password of a web page. Now save the file as csrf.html

Now when you will open the csrf.html file it will look like the given below image where it contains the text field for password and a submit button.

Now again open csrf.html with notepad to edit the value inside the text field given for new password and confirm password. In following screenshot you can see I have given value= “hacker” as new password and confirm password. Then again save it with csrf.html

Now when again you will open csrf.html file you will find that the blank text field are given for password is get filled.

Now when you will click on change button the password will reset for that web page. This is all about how html form will work and from given screenshot you can read the sent GET request for changing password through URL. 

 Since this tutorial is related to bypass low security in DVWA therefore we need to add target location inside the html form to make CSRF attack for changing the password for admin without his permission.

Now copy the URL as shown in the following image.

Again open csrf.html with notepad and replace # from above copied URL which will directly change the password of targeted location for user admin.

Here you can read the final syntax for html form to change the password for admin inside DVWA without his involvement.  Now send this crsf.html file to victim using social engineering or phishing technique to trap the victim for exploiting with CSRF attack.

                                                New password:

                                                

                                                Confirm new password:

                                                

                                               

                                                

When victim will open the csrf.html file and click on change button the password will get changed for admin inside DVWA.

From screenshot you can see without admin permission we have successfully changed his password.

Now let’s verify, as we know the previous credential was admin: password; here when I try to use them it shows the login failed.

Further when I try with admin: hacker as current credential, I login successfully inside DVWA. This was all about CSRF tutorial to bypass low security in DVWA.