Exfiltrating data from Android applications via WebView Takeover (Open Redirect)

Inês Martins -

In this article, I go through the scenarios in which I've been able to exfiltrate data from real Android applications, after detecting a WebView takeover (aka "Open Redirect") vulnerability.

Typically this vulnerability is the result of allowing an external Intent to control a URI that is loaded onto a WebView, declared inside the vulnerable application.

This Intent can sometimes be triggered via deep link, but more often than not, requires that a malicious application be installed in the victim's device.

Note that this article closely relates to the "Exploiting Deep Links in Android" series, particularly with Part 2.

1. Abusing Javascript Bindings

If the vulnerable WebView registers any web interfaces, and you're able to redirect it to a website you control, then you can simply add JavaScript to your website that interacts with the app's code directly.

If you can read the app's source code, search for any calls to the  addJavascriptInterface method, to find the name of the declared interface(s), and then you can find all of the exposed methods annotated with @JavascriptInterface.

On your website, your JS code can call all of the exposed methods by using the window.interface_name.method_name syntax.

Of course, the impact will vary depending on what the exposed methods allow you to do.

To see a more detailed example, check out this HackerOne report: https://hackerone.com/reports/401793.

2. Via Malicious app (< 24 SDK)

If the vulnerable WebView can load local file:// URIs, you might be able exfiltrate all of the app's files with a little help from a malicious application.

Here are the steps:

  1. the malicious application writes an HTML file to a shared directory, accessible by the vulnerable app (e.g.: /sdcard);
  2. the malicious application sends an Intent to the vulnerable app that contains a file:// URI that matches the location of the HTML file;
  3. the file:// URI is loaded by the vulnerable WebView;
  4. once the HTML file is loaded, the JS code declared inside this file reads all local files and sends them to a server you control.

Note that the following conditions need to be present in order for this to work:

  • the malicious app needs to be granted the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission and needs to be able to write to a shared location, which is only possible before the enforcement of "scoped storage" (< SDK 30);
  • the vulnerable app needs to be granted the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission and needs to be able to read from a shared location, same reason as above;
  • the vulnerable app needs to be able to read file:// URIs, which will throw an error after SDK 24 (you might get lucky if the developer actually intends for this to happen, and adds custom code to enable this behaviour);
  • the vulnerable WebView needs to have JS enabled.