Introduction to CakePHP for Bug Hunters

A quick guide to help you expedite your quest.

Introduction

To uncover security flaws in a web application, it is vital to spend time understanding about the framework on which it is built. This article will assist you in expediting the process for an application created with CakePHP. After reading this, you will be equipped to begin searching for security flaws in a CakePHP application. This is not, however, a comprehensive guide. I'll presume you have the source code for any programme you're looking into and are comfortable with PHP.

 

Overview of the Framework

PHP language has the best Cakephp Web Development Framework. The current version is 3.7 at the time of writing. It, like many other prominent frameworks, is built around the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural paradigm. This pattern specifies how HTTP requests and replies are processed and displayed to the user.

As such, the request cycle may be generalised. A controller handles requests that come from an HTTP client. After that, the controller selects how to interact with the model (e.g. query a database). Finally, the client will be shown a view (e.g., a web page) that contains the model (e.g. a list from the query results). Again, this is only a broad generalisation. Other components (such as middleware) are used, but they form the foundation of the MVC architectural pattern.

Routes of Application

When it comes to request handling, the controller is crucial. It is common to see a route like "/Articles" handled by the ArticlesController.php class. In reality, controllers will be referred to in this manner by convention.

 

However, there is a configuration file called "routes.php" that may be edited to specify custom routing logic. For example, if the following route was set in routes.php, the path "/Articles" would instead redirect to the MyArticlesController index action.

 

Router::connect(

   ‘/Articles’,

   array(‘controller’ => ‘MyArticles’, ‘action’ => ‘index’)

);

 

The framework includes a RoutesShell that can be used to list all routes. Run the command below in the project directory. You may discover pathways you were unaware existed:

 

bin/cake routes

 

I won't go into all of the routing details here, but read the CakePHP routing documentation to gain a better understanding of the more intricate routing options.

 

Controller Routing decides which controller will handle a given request. The majority of controller logic is built around actions. In controller classes, actions are defined as public methods. These action methods will take care of a request and generate a response (typically a view). User input will undoubtedly begin to appear in the action methods.

 

An example path to trigger the “update” action in the ArticlesController might look like “/Articles/update”.

 

Model

CakePHP, like many other frameworks, makes use of object-relational mapping (ORM) to simplify database interactions for developers. ORM is the model's enchantment. Table and Entity objects represent database tables and "individual rows or domain objects," respectively, in the model. Table and entity classes may be found in the project's src/Model/Table and src/Model/Entity folders.

 

As you can expect, if the developer wasn't diligent, the model may be vulnerable to SQL injection (SQLi). Examine controllers and table methods for database queries. You could get lucky and identify a problem in an execute() string parameter if the developer is unskilled.

 

However, for the most part, detecting a SQLi vulnerability will be difficult. There is a section in the manual dedicated to SQLi prevention. I'm not going to copy/paste their advice here, but it has instances of sensitive circumstances.

 

View

The view is in charge of producing output that is returned to the HTTP client. This might be in the form of HTML, XML, JSON, a PDF file, or another format. CakePHP uses view template files (.ctp) to show the data that will be returned. These files may be found "in src/Template/, in a folder named after the controller that utilises the files, and in a folder named after the action it relates to." The diagram below, for example, depicts the project structure as it pertains to a view for the update action in ArticlesController.

 

Because view templates "use the alternate PHP syntax for control structures and output," they may appear strange at first. For example, consider the following foreach control structure:

 

Security

CakePHP includes a few features to assist developers improve security, in addition to the middleware listed above. The Security Utility and Security Component are examples of these. They are in charge of duties like encryption, hashing, and enforcing SSL, among others. If these aren't being used, the developer may have implemented their own security or omitted some features completely.

 

Conclusion

You should be feeling confident in your ability to tackle a bug search in a CakePHP-based online application at this point. I gave you an overview of the framework, directed you to pertinent documents, and reviewed the security implications of key components. Remember that the method of auditing PHP code stays basically unchanged. The primary distinction is that the framework organises user input and data flow in its own manner. Once you've figured out how the framework works, you're ready to start!