<<Attacks on Web Services are often targeted at XML based content. 
Here are some of the more significant XML based attacks:

Recursive payload attack - the attacker takes advantage of the 
nesting supported within XML. One of the strengths of XML is its 
ability through nesting to efficiently address complex, hierarchical 
relationships between data elements. With the recursive payload 
attack, an XML document is created with very deep nesting of data 
elements, thousands of elements deep or where the nesting is 
recursive. Many of the older XML parsers would choke on this, 
essentially leading to a denial of service.

Jumbo Payload attack - Essentially exploiting a poorly written parser 
that is unable to process an exceedingly large XML document leading 
to a denial-of-service. This has become less of an issue as parsers, 
are now better able to handle larger payloads and have the correct 
exception handling if the document is too big.

XQuery Injection - An XML variant to the SQL injection technique. 
XQuery is a language designed to permit querying and format XML data. 
An attacker may inject XQuery as part of a SOAP message causing a 
SOAP destination service to manipulate an XML document incorrectly.

XML Morphing - Involves changing/manipulating XML docs into a form 
that XML processor cannot handle.

WSDL Enumeration - Web Services Description Language is used to 
describe the services and how to engage the methods for these 
services. By enumerating and parsing through WSDL , someone could get 
info about other methods that may have restricted access or a deduce 
how to compromise a service through a backdoor unpublished method.

Schema Poisoning – Modifying the schema referenced by an XML document 
in a manner that is inconsistent with the document - causing the 
processor to choke on the document.

These are just a sampling of XML based attacks that can be 
perpetrated against your web service deployment. 
Here are a couple of steps to take to protect against such threats.

First, validate and version control XML Schemas. Second, encrypt XML 
content. Third, inspect incoming and outgoing XML through use of XML 
based firewall or IPS equipped to handle such inspection. It's not 
foolproof but it's a start toward better security for web services.>>

You can find this at:

<http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/security_insider/2006/06/threat_protection
_for_web_serv_2.php>

Gervas










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