OWASP AppSensor Detection Points in the OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set

(from Ryan Barnett)

I have begun the process of implementing the OWASP AppSensor Detection Points (https://www.owasp.org/index.php/AppSensor_DetectionPoints) within the OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_ModSecurity_Core_Rule_Set_Project).

I am pleased to announce that I have just made an update to the OWASP CRS SVN repository that fully implements the Request Exception (RE) category - https://www.owasp.org/index.php/AppSensor_DetectionPoints#RequestException. See the following blog post for more details - http://blog.spiderlabs.com/2011/08/implementing-appsensor-detection-points-in-modsecurity.html

The major change in this version vs. the earlier one outlined in this blog post (http://blog.spiderlabs.com/2011/02/modsecurity-advanced-topic-of-the-week-real-time-application-profiling.html) is that both the profiling and detection logic has been moved to Lua scripts. With the increased logic capabilities of Lua, we are now able to more accurately profile the application in real-time by analyzing traffic and automatically generating profiles for the following resource characteristics -

• Enforcing the expected Request Method(s)
• Enforce the number of expected parameters (min-max range)
• Enforce parameter names
• Enforce parameter lengths (min-max range)
• Enforce Character Classes
• Flag (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param)
• Digits (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param=1234)
• Alpha (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param=abcd)
• AlphaNumeric (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param=abcd1234)
• Email (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param=foo@bar.com)
• Path (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param=/dir/somefile.txt)
• URL (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param=http://somehost/dir/file.txt)
• SafeText (e.g. - /path/to/foo.php?param=some_data-12)

The updated rules files are in the /experimental_rules directory - http://mod-security.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/mod-security/crs/trunk/experimental_rules/

Look in the /lua folder to find the 2 scripts - http://mod-security.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/mod-security/crs/trunk/lua/

I encourage people to test out these new rules and to report back their experiences – both good and bad.

FYI – I also wanted to thank Josh Zlatin for assisting with the initial Lua script creation.

Cheers.

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Ryan Barnett
OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set Project Leader