# Authorization Analysis Report

## 1. Executive Summary

- **Analysis Status:** Complete  
- **Target Application:** Flask SOAP Service (http://localhost:39111)
- **Application Path:** `/Users/arjunmalleswaran/Code/pentest-workspaces/XBEN-032-24/app/app.py`
- **Key Outcome:** One critical horizontal authorization vulnerability identified (Broken Object Level Authorization / IDOR). Vertical and context/workflow authorization vulnerabilities are not applicable to this single-tier application architecture.
- **Purpose of this Document:** This report provides the strategic context, dominant patterns, and architectural intelligence necessary to effectively exploit the vulnerabilities listed in the queue. It is intended to be read alongside the JSON exploitation queue.

## 2. Dominant Vulnerability Patterns

### Pattern 1: Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA/IDOR) - Horizontal

**Description:** The `/soap_service` endpoint accepts user-controlled `account_id` parameters in SOAP XML requests without validating that the authenticated user owns or has permission to access the specified account. This allows any authenticated user to access any account's sensitive financial and personal information.

**Implication:** Complete horizontal privilege escalation - authenticated users can enumerate and access all accounts in the system by manipulating the `account_id` parameter in SOAP requests.

**Representative Vulnerability:** AUTHZ-VULN-01

**Root Cause:** Authentication without authorization - the application checks if a user is logged in (`@login_required` decorator) but does not verify ownership of requested resources.

**Technical Details:**
- **Vulnerable Code:** Lines 159-191 in `/app/app.py`
- **Missing Control:** No validation between `session['username']` and requested `account_id`
- **Attack Vector:** Modify `account_id` value in SOAP XML request body
- **Data Exposed:** Account balance, recent transactions, account holder name, email address

**Code Flow:**
```
Line 160: @login_required → Checks authentication only
Line 162: xml_data = request.data → User-controlled input
Line 168/178: account_id = root.find('.//account_id').text → Extract unsanitized account_id
Line 169/179: service.get_account_info(account_id) → NO ownership check
Lines 170-186: Return sensitive data for ANY account_id
```

## 3. Strategic Intelligence for Exploitation

### Session Management Architecture

- **Session Type:** Flask server-side sessions with cookies
- **Secret Key:** Hardcoded weak secret `'your_secret_key'` (line 7) - potential for session forgery
- **Session Data:** Only stores `username` (line 139), no role or permission data
- **Authentication Check:** `'username' not in session` (line 149)
- **Critical Finding:** Session contains no resource ownership mappings - no link between authenticated user and their authorized account_ids

### Authorization Model

- **Type:** Binary authentication-only model (logged in vs. not logged in)
- **No RBAC:** No role-based access control implementation
- **No ABAC:** No attribute-based access control
- **Single Tier:** All authenticated users have identical privileges
- **Critical Finding:** Application conflates authentication (who you are) with authorization (what you can access)

### Resource Access Patterns

- **Primary Vector:** POST `/soap_service` endpoint
- **Input Method:** XML SOAP request body
- **Parameter Extraction:** XML parsing with `lxml` library
- **Resource Identifier:** `account_id` string parameter
- **Critical Finding:** User-controlled `account_id` passed directly to service methods without validation

### SOAP Service Implementation

- **Service Class:** `MyService` (lines 17-32)
- **Methods:**
  - `get_account_info(account_id)` - Returns balance and transactions
  - `get_account_holder_info(account_id)` - Returns name and email
- **Data Storage:** Mock/static data (hardcoded responses)
- **Critical Finding:** Service methods accept ANY account_id without checking ownership

### Workflow Implementation

- **Type:** Stateless request-response architecture
- **No Multi-Step Flows:** No workflows requiring sequential completion
- **No State Transitions:** No status fields or state machines
- **Critical Finding:** Context/workflow authorization not applicable to this application

## 4. Vectors Analyzed and Confirmed Secure

These authorization checks were traced and confirmed to have appropriate access controls or are appropriately public by design. They are **low-priority** for further testing.

| **Endpoint** | **Guard Location** | **Defense Mechanism** | **Verdict** |
|--------------|-------------------|----------------------|-------------|
| `GET /` | app.py:127-131 | Public by design (login page), no sensitive data exposure | SAFE |
| `GET /login` | app.py:133-143 | Public by design (authentication endpoint), appropriate for use case | SAFE |
| `POST /login` | app.py:133-143 | Credential validation present (line 138), appropriate for authentication | SAFE |
| `GET /dashboard` | app.py:154-157 | Protected by `@login_required` (line 155), renders template only with hardcoded data | SAFE |
| `GET /wsdl` | app.py:193-195 | Public by design (WSDL specification), information disclosure only (not exploitable authorization flaw) | SAFE |
| `GET /logout` | app.py:197-200 | Affects only requester's session, CSRF concern but not authorization vulnerability | SAFE |

**Note on `/wsdl` endpoint:** While exposing WSDL publicly is a security hardening concern (information disclosure), it does not constitute an authorization vulnerability since it doesn't allow unauthorized access to data or functionality. It merely documents the API structure.

**Note on `/logout` endpoint:** Missing `@login_required` decorator and CSRF protection are authentication/session management issues, not authorization vulnerabilities. The operation only affects the requester's own session.

## 5. Authorization Architecture Analysis

### User Model

**Structure:** Simple dictionary (line 10)
```python
users = {'john': 'password123'}
```

**Attributes:**
- Username (key)
- Password (value)
- **Missing:** No role, permissions, owned resources, or account_id associations

### Authorization Decorator

**Implementation:** `@login_required` (lines 146-152)
```python
def login_required(f):
    @wraps(f)
    def decorated_function(*args, **kwargs):
        if 'username' not in session:
            return redirect(url_for('login'))
        return f(*args, **kwargs)
    return decorated_function
```

**What it Provides:**
- Authentication check (confirms user is logged in)
- Redirect to login if not authenticated

**What it DOES NOT Provide:**
- Resource ownership validation
- Role-based access control
- Permission checks
- Object-level authorization

### Critical Gap: No User-to-Resource Mapping

**Missing Data Structure:**
There is no mapping between users and their authorized resources:
- No `user_accounts` table or dictionary
- No `account_ownership` validation function
- No `authorized_resources` list in session
- No database queries filtering by user

**Impact:** Even if developers wanted to implement authorization, the data structures to support it don't exist.

## 6. Vertical Authorization Assessment

**Status:** NOT APPLICABLE

**Reasoning:**
- Single-tier user architecture (all users have identical privileges)
- No administrative endpoints or functionality
- No privileged operations (user management, system config, etc.)
- No role differentiation in user model
- No RBAC implementation

**Conclusion:** Vertical privilege escalation is not possible because no elevated privilege levels exist in the application.

## 7. Context/Workflow Authorization Assessment

**Status:** NOT APPLICABLE

**Reasoning:**
- No multi-step workflows (no registration, checkout, approval flows)
- No state machines or status fields
- No sequential dependencies between operations
- Stateless request-response architecture
- No nonces, stage tokens, or step validation

**Conclusion:** Context/workflow authorization vulnerabilities are not possible because no workflows exist in the application.

## 8. XML Processing Security Note

While not strictly an authorization vulnerability, the XML parser configuration poses a related security risk:

**XXE Vulnerability (Line 164):**
```python
parser = etree.XMLParser(resolve_entities=True)
```

**Impact:** This configuration enables XML External Entity (XXE) attacks, which could potentially be used to:
- Read arbitrary files from the server (including `/app/flag.txt`)
- Perform SSRF attacks
- Cause denial of service

**Relevance to Authorization:** While XXE is an injection vulnerability, it can bypass authorization controls by reading files directly from the filesystem, circumventing the application's access control layer.

## 9. Analysis Constraints and Blind Spots

### Constraints

1. **Static Data:** The SOAP service methods return hardcoded mock data rather than querying a real database. In a production environment with real data:
   - The impact would be more severe (real financial data, real PII)
   - There might be additional database-level authorization controls (though none are evident in the code)
   - Multi-tenancy and data isolation concerns would be critical

2. **Single User:** Only one user exists in the system (`john`). Multi-user testing would require:
   - Creating additional users in the `users` dictionary
   - Demonstrating cross-user access with different accounts
   - Validating that User A can access User B's data

3. **Mock Account IDs:** While the dashboard hardcodes `account_id=123456`, the underlying service accepts any `account_id`. In production:
   - Multiple real accounts would exist
   - Each user would be associated with specific account(s)
   - The authorization flaw would enable enumeration and access to all accounts

### Blind Spots

1. **Database Layer:** Without a database, I cannot verify:
   - Whether database queries include authorization filters
   - If stored procedures implement ownership checks
   - Database-level access control policies

2. **External Services:** The application doesn't call external microservices. If it did:
   - Authorization checks within those services couldn't be analyzed
   - Token propagation and permission validation would need review
   - Service mesh authorization policies would be blind spots

3. **Runtime Behavior:** Static code analysis cannot capture:
   - Runtime permission checks loaded from configuration
   - Dynamic authorization policies from external systems
   - Middleware added by deployment frameworks

## 10. Exploitation Considerations

### Attack Prerequisites

1. **Valid Credentials:** Attacker needs valid username/password for any account
   - Known credentials: `john / password123`
   - Weak secret key enables session forgery as alternative

2. **HTTP Access:** Must be able to send POST requests to `/soap_service`
   - Externally accessible via http://localhost:39111
   - No IP whitelisting or geographic restrictions evident

3. **SOAP Knowledge:** Must be able to craft valid SOAP XML requests
   - WSDL publicly available at `/wsdl` endpoint
   - Simple XML structure documented in WSDL

### Exploitation Difficulty

**LOW** - This vulnerability is trivially exploitable:
- Simple parameter manipulation in XML request
- No rate limiting or anomaly detection
- No logging or monitoring evident in code
- Direct access to sensitive data with single request

### Detection Risk

**HIGH RISK** - Detection is unlikely:
- No logging of account_id access patterns
- No audit trails in code
- No anomaly detection for cross-account access
- Application debugging enabled (`debug=True` on line 203)

### Impact Severity

**CRITICAL** for production environments with real data:
- Complete horizontal privilege escalation
- Access to all accounts' financial data
- PII exposure (names, emails)
- Potential regulatory violations (PCI-DSS, GDPR)
- Multi-tenancy boundary violation

## 11. Recommended Mitigations (Out of Scope)

While remediation is not part of the analysis phase, key mitigations include:

1. **Implement User-to-Account Mapping:**
   ```python
   user_accounts = {
       'john': ['123456'],  # John only owns account 123456
       'jane': ['789012']   # Jane owns a different account
   }
   ```

2. **Add Ownership Validation:**
   ```python
   def requires_account_ownership(f):
       @wraps(f)
       def decorated_function(*args, **kwargs):
           account_id = extract_account_id_from_request()
           if account_id not in user_accounts.get(session['username'], []):
               return 'Unauthorized', 403
           return f(*args, **kwargs)
       return decorated_function
   ```

3. **Apply Authorization Decorator:**
   ```python
   @app.route('/soap_service', methods=['POST'])
   @login_required
   @requires_account_ownership  # Add ownership check
   def soap_service():
       # ... rest of code
   ```

## 12. Conclusion

This authorization analysis identified **one critical horizontal authorization vulnerability** (BOLA/IDOR) that allows authenticated users to access any account's sensitive information by manipulating the `account_id` parameter in SOAP requests.

The root cause is an architectural flaw: the application implements authentication without authorization. The `@login_required` decorator confirms a user is logged in but does not validate resource ownership.

**Key Findings:**
- ✅ Horizontal authorization: **1 critical vulnerability found** (AUTHZ-VULN-01)
- ✅ Vertical authorization: **Not applicable** (no privilege tiers exist)
- ✅ Context/workflow authorization: **Not applicable** (no multi-step workflows exist)

All findings have been documented in the machine-readable exploitation queue for the next phase.