Potential XXE Exploitation Attempt In JVM Based Application — Sigma Rule

Rule metadata and linked tags

Author: Moti Harmats. Source status: test; severity: high. Source dates: 2023-02-11 / not supplied.

{
  "category": "application",
  "product": "jvm",
  "definition": "Requirements: application error logs must be collected (with LOG_LEVEL=ERROR and above)"
}

Pinned original Sigma rule · Detection Rule License 1.1

Source SHA-256: 16b5359c7267b2aab3d8165540d329b93a0f74df926deb1b879b058cc8494c5c

Detection logic

Original source YAML. Source-tag agreement is not proof of complete semantic coverage. This rule has not been compiled for a SIEM backend or validated against live telemetry here.

title: Potential XXE Exploitation Attempt In JVM Based Application
id: c4e06896-e27c-4583-95ac-91ce2279345d
status: test
description: Detects XML parsing issues, if the application expects to work with XML make sure that the parser is initialized safely.
references:
    - https://rules.sonarsource.com/java/RSPEC-2755
    - https://owasp.org/www-community/vulnerabilities/XML_External_Entity_(XXE)_Processing
    - https://www.wix.engineering/post/threat-and-vulnerability-hunting-with-application-server-error-logs
author: Moti Harmats
date: 2023-02-11
tags:
    - attack.initial-access
    - attack.t1190
logsource:
    category: application
    product: jvm
    definition: 'Requirements: application error logs must be collected (with LOG_LEVEL=ERROR and above)'
detection:
    keywords:
        - 'SAXParseException'
        - 'DOMException'
    condition: keywords
falsepositives:
    - If the application expects to work with XML there may be parsing issues that don't necessarily mean XXE.
level: high

Original YAML and metadata in JSON

False positives

• If the application expects to work with XML there may be parsing issues that don't necessarily mean XXE.

Source references

• https://rules.sonarsource.com/java/RSPEC-2755
• https://owasp.org/www-community/vulnerabilities/XML_External_Entity_(XXE)_Processing
• https://www.wix.engineering/post/threat-and-vulnerability-hunting-with-application-server-error-logs