Lab 7 - Introduction to Web App Hacking (Part 1)

Overview

This repository contains the practical lab report and screenshots for Lab 7 - Web Application Hacking (Part 1), completed on PortSwigger Web Security Academy.

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Tools Used

Tool	Purpose
Burp Suite Community Edition v2025.12.5	Web application security testing proxy
Kali Linux (VMware VM)	Penetration testing OS
PortSwigger Web Security Academy	Hands-on lab platform

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Vulnerabilities Covered

✅ Vulnerability 1 - File Path Traversal (LFI)

• Lab: File path traversal, simple case
• Objective: Retrieve the contents of /etc/passwd from the server
• Payload Used: ../../../etc/passwd
• Status: 🟢 SOLVED

How it works: The application loads product images using a filename parameter without validation. By injecting ../../../etc/passwd, we traversed up the directory tree and read a sensitive server file.

GET /image?filename=../../../etc/passwd HTTP/2

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✅ Vulnerability 2 - OS Command Injection

• Lab: OS command injection, simple case
• Objective: Execute the whoami command on the server
• Payload Used: storeId=1|whoami
• Status: 🟢 SOLVED

How it works: The stock check feature passes user input directly to a shell command. By injecting |whoami after the storeId value, we chained an OS command and got back the server's current user.

POST /product/stock
productId=3&storeId=1|whoami

Response: peter-C55TYa

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Repository Structure

Lab-7-Web-App-Hacking/
├── README.md
├── Report/
│   └── Lab7_Web_App_Hacking_Report.docx
└── Screenshots/
    └── (all lab screenshots)

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References

• https://portswigger.net/web-security/file-path-traversal
• https://portswigger.net/web-security/os-command-injection
• https://portswigger.net/burp/communitydownload