SIFT has just published a world-first tool for identifying rogue web methods. The Web Method Search tool is a Windows based application that uses a hybrid dictionary attack in an attempt to find unpublished administrative and other web services functions.

As web services are becoming more prevalent, poor security practices from previous generations of application architectures are being transferred to the web service space. One of these practices is the use of ‘security through obscurity’ to hide certain web methods from users – that is, web methods exist that can be called, but that are not published in the WSDL or otherwise disclosed.

The SIFT Web Method Search tool is a dictionary attack tool that can be used to brute force the web method names for a given web service under certain circumstances. That is, SOAP requests can be submitted to a web service using probable combinations of words to allow the identification of hidden web methods not published in the corresponding WSDL document. This is possible because responses to requests for non-existent web methods and web methods that exist differ markedly under most platforms.

The tool is available for download from http://www.sift.com.au/73/171/sift-web-method-search-tool.htm

Should anyone have any questions, bug reports or other suggestions please feel free to contact us via research@sift.com.au