Using and Extending Vega Vega is an open-source web application vulnerability assessment platform that provides an automated scanner and intercepting proxy. The automated scanner recursively crawls targets and runs injection modules to find vulnerabilities. The intercepting proxy allows editing requests and responses and running response processing modules. Modules are written in JavaScript and Vega is highly extensible. Future plans include improving detections, adding a fuzzer, and making the platform more scriptable.

1. Using and Extending Vega
David Mirza, Subgraph
Montreal
www.subgraph.com

2. Introduction
Who We Are
 Open-source security startup
 Based in Montreal
 Experienced founders:
• Secure Networks Inc.
• SecurityFocus (Symantec)
• Core Security Technologies
• Netifera
• REcon
www.subgraph.com

3. Open Source and Security
 Kerckhoffs’ principle
 Auguste Kerckhoffs: 19th Century Dutch
linguist and cryptographer
 Made an important realization:
“
“
 “The security of any cryptographic
The security of any cryptographic system does
system doessecrecy, it in itsbe able to fall
not rest in its
not rest must secrecy, it
mustthe enemy’s hands without inconvenience.
into be able to fall into the enemy’s
hands without inconvenience”
 The adversary knows the system (Claude
The adversary knows the system
Shannon) (Claude Shannon)
”
”
 As opposed to “security through
obscurity”
www.subgraph.com

4. Open Source and Security
 Kerckhoffs’ Principle
 Well understood in the world of
cryptography
 New ciphers not trusted
 Because cryptography is a
“black box”
 Once in a while, less now,
companies try to market
proprietary ciphers
 There’s a term for this: “snake oil”
 Kerckhoffs’ principle can be
understood as “open source is
good security”
www.subgraph.com

5. Commercial Web Security Software
 Advantages
 Ease of installation, upgrade, use
 User experience
 Quality assurance, bug fixes
 Documentation and help
 Development driven by demand and need
 Disadvantages
 Expensive
 Sometimes bizarre licensing restrictions
 EOL, acquisitions, other events
 Proprietary / closed source
www.subgraph.com

6. Open Source Web Security Tools
 Let’s just talk about disadvantages..
 No integration / sharing between tools
 Poor or non-existent UI, documentation / help
 Painful, broken installations
 Code is of inconsistent quality
 Developer / contributor unreliability
 Developer interest driven by interest, skill level, whim
 Forks
 Abandonment 
 Developer finished college, got a job
 Successfully reproduced
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7. i hurt
 myself
today
www.subgraph.com

8. Our Vision
 One web, one web security tool
 Open source
 Consistent, well-designed UI
 Functions really well as an automated scanner
 Shouldn’t need to be a penetration tester
 Advanced features for those who are
 User extensibility
 Community
 Plus all that boring stuff
 Documentation, help, business friendly features
 We are building the ultimate platform for web security
 Rapidly prototype attacks
 Nobody should have to use commercial tools
 Because Vega is free
www.subgraph.com

9. Introducing Vega Platform
‣ Open-source web application
vulnerability assessment platform
‣ Easy to use Graphical Interface
‣ Works on Windows, Mac, Linux
‣ Automated scanner, attacking proxy
finds vulnerabilities
‣ Based on Eclipse RCP
‣ Extensible: Javascript – language
every web developer knows
‣ Shipped first release July 1
‣ EPL 1.0
www.subgraph.com

10. Vega is Built On:
Eclipse RCP / Equinox OSGi
Apache HC
JSoup
Mozilla Rhino
Eliteness
www.subgraph.com

11. Automated Scanner
 Recursive crawl over target scope
 404 detection
 Probes path nodes to determine if files, directories
 Builds tree-like internal representation of target
application
 Vega runs injection modules on nodes, abstracted in API
 Response processing modules run on all responses
 Modules written in Javascript
 New for 1.0
 Expanded scope, more than one base URI
 Support for authentication: HTTP, form-based, NTLM
 Much better scanner modules
 Very annoying crawler bugs fixed 
www.subgraph.com

12. Vega Automated Scanner
www.subgraph.com

13. Start new scan and choose
some of these modules:
www.subgraph.com

14. Which are each one of these..
www.subgraph.com

15. Modules produce
vulnerability
reports:
www.subgraph.com

16. ..which are based on these:
Vega is very extensible.
www.subgraph.com

17. Request /
response pair
www.subgraph.com

18. Can be reviewed / replayed, module
highlights finding
www.subgraph.com

19. Vega Proxy
 Intercepting proxy
 SSL MITM, including CA signing cert
 http://vega/ca.crt through the proxy
 Edit requests, responses
 Request replay
 Response processing modules run on all responses
 Modules written in Javascript
 New for 1.0
 Proxy scanning
 Fuzzes pages in target scope when enabled
 Finds lots of vulnerabilities 
www.subgraph.com

20. Browser proxy
configuration:
www.subgraph.com

21. General proxy use. Green “play” button
enables proxy, red stops it.
www.subgraph.com

22. Configuring a Breakpoint
www.subgraph.com

23. Intercepted Request
www.subgraph.com

24. SSL MITM: Magic proxy URI
www.subgraph.com

25. Proxy Scanning
Gathers parameters and path information
observing client-server interaction
Sees things the crawler can’t see
 RPC endpoints
 Links in flash, Java, other active content
Very effective at finding vulnerabilities
To try it, configure the proxy, create a
proxy target scope, enable proxy scanning
www.subgraph.com

26. Configure a target scope
www.subgraph.com

27. Enable Proxy Scanning
Alert Notification Icon, aka SQL Injection Blinker
www.subgraph.com

28. Proxy Scanner Alerts
www.subgraph.com

29. Demo
(1.0!)
www.subgraph.com

30. Extending Vega
Modules written in Javascript
In the Vega/scripts/ subdirectory tree
 Well on OS X they’re in some weird place
Two kinds of modules:
 Injection, AKA “Basic”
 Send fuzzing requests, do stuff with the responses
 Response processing
 Pattern matching, regex, checking response
properties
www.subgraph.com

31. Extending Vega
Rich API
 Check documentation at
https://support.subgraph.com
DOM Analysis with Jquery
 E.g. file
upload, password input submitted
over HTTP..
Alerts based on XML templates
 In the XML/ subdirectory
Freemarker Macro / CSS components
www.subgraph.com

32. Where are we at?
 Feature complete for 1.0
 Testing and fixing bugs
 Additional module refinement and testing
 Vega 1.0 release in November? Or early December
 Visit my github (or github.com/brl) if you want what you
see here
 Download link on our website is the beta..
 Can provide builds for OS X, Windows users
 Just ask me – email, irc (#subgraph / freenode), twitter, whatever
www.subgraph.com

33. What’s coming?
 Even more improvements in detections
 Fuzzer / brute forcer
 Better reporting
 Better encoding, decoding, representation and
manipulation of structured data
 Headless scanner
 HAR export
 Scriptable proxy
 We’re open to ideas and feedback!
www.subgraph.com

34. Thank you!
 Web  Try Vega / get the source
 http://www.subgraph.com  http://github.com/dma/Vega (newer,
less stable)
 Twitter
 http://github.com/subgraph/Vega
 Us: @subgraph (more stable)
 Me: @attractr
 E-mail us
 IRC  info@subgraph.com
 irc.freenode.org, #subgraph
www.subgraph.com