Exploiting Broken Link Hijacking

When to Use

• When auditing web applications for references to expired or unclaimed external resources
• During supply chain security assessments of third-party script and resource dependencies
• When testing for subdomain takeover opportunities via dangling CNAME records
• During bug bounty hunting for broken link hijacking vulnerabilities
• When assessing the security of external resource dependencies in production applications

Prerequisites

• Web crawler or spider for discovering all external links (Burp Suite Spider, Scrapy)
• DNS lookup tools for checking CNAME records and domain availability
• Domain registrar access for claiming expired domains (as proof of concept)
• Understanding of CDN and cloud service provisioning (S3, Azure Blob, GitHub Pages)
• blc (broken-link-checker) or similar tool for automated link validation
• Knowledge of services vulnerable to subdomain takeover (can-i-take-over-xyz)

Workflow

Step 1 — Crawl and Extract All External References

# Use broken-link-checker to find dead links
npx broken-link-checker http://target.com --recursive --ordered \
  --exclude-internal --filter-level 3 -o broken_links.txt

# Extract all external links from page source
curl -s http://target.com | grep -oP 'https?://[^"'"'"'\s>]+' | sort -u > all_links.txt

# Extract JavaScript sources
curl -s http://target.com | grep -oP 'src="[^"]*"' | grep -v target.com > external_scripts.txt

# Extract CSS references
curl -s http://target.com | grep -oP 'href="[^"]*\.css"' | grep -v target.com > external_css.txt

# Use wayback machine for historical external references
curl -s "https://web.archive.org/web/timemap/link/http://target.com" | \
  grep -oP 'https?://[^>]+' | sort -u > historical_links.txt

# Spider with Burp Suite
# Configure Spider scope to include target.com
# Review Site Map > Filter by "External" to list all external references

Step 2 — Identify Dead or Claimable Resources

# Check if external domains are registered
for domain in $(cat external_domains.txt); do
  whois $domain 2>/dev/null | grep -qi "no match\|not found\|available" && \
    echo "[CLAIMABLE] $domain"
done

# Check HTTP status of external links
while read url; do
  status=$(curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{http_code}" "$url" --max-time 5)
  if [ "$status" = "000" ] || [ "$status" = "404" ]; then
    echo "[DEAD] $url (Status: $status)"
  fi
done < all_links.txt

# Check for dangling CNAME records
for sub in $(cat subdomains.txt); do
  cname=$(dig +short CNAME $sub)
  if [ -n "$cname" ]; then
    resolved=$(dig +short $cname)
    if [ -z "$resolved" ]; then
      echo "[DANGLING] $sub -> $cname (UNRESOLVED)"
    fi
  fi
done

# Check cloud resource availability
# AWS S3 bucket
aws s3 ls s3://target-assets 2>&1 | grep -q "NoSuchBucket" && echo "[CLAIMABLE] S3: target-assets"

Step 3 — Check Service-Specific Takeover Possibilities

# Check GitHub Pages takeover
# If CNAME points to <user>.github.io and 404 is returned
curl -s https://subdomain.target.com | grep -q "There isn't a GitHub Pages site here"

# Check AWS S3 takeover
curl -s http://subdomain.target.com | grep -q "NoSuchBucket"

# Check Azure Blob Storage
curl -s http://subdomain.target.com | grep -q "The specified container does not exist"

# Check Heroku
curl -s http://subdomain.target.com | grep -q "No such app"

# Check Shopify
curl -s http://subdomain.target.com | grep -q "Sorry, this shop is currently unavailable"

# Use subjack for automated takeover detection
subjack -w subdomains.txt -c fingerprints.json -t 100 -o takeover_candidates.txt

# Use nuclei takeover templates
subfinder -d target.com -silent | nuclei -t http/takeovers/ -o takeovers.txt

Step 4 — Verify External Script Hijacking

# Check if external JavaScript domains are available for registration
curl -s http://target.com | grep -oP 'src="https?://([^/"]+)' | \
  cut -d'/' -f3 | sort -u | while read domain; do
    whois "$domain" 2>/dev/null | grep -qi "no match\|available" && \
      echo "[HIJACKABLE SCRIPT] $domain loaded by target.com"
  done

# Check npm/CDN package references
curl -s http://target.com | grep -oP 'unpkg\.com/[^@/]+' | sort -u
curl -s http://target.com | grep -oP 'cdn\.jsdelivr\.net/npm/[^@/]+' | sort -u

# Verify if referenced packages still exist
# Check npm registry for deprecated or removed packages

Step 5 — Exploit the Broken Link (Authorized Testing Only)

# For expired domain: Register the domain
# For S3 bucket: Create bucket with same name in same region
aws s3 mb s3://target-expired-bucket --region us-east-1

# For GitHub Pages: Create repository with matching name
# Create <org>.github.io repository with proof-of-concept content

# For unclaimed social media: Claim the handle
# Document the takeover with benign proof-of-concept content

# Serve proof-of-concept content
echo "<html><body><h1>Broken Link Hijacking PoC - [Your Name]</h1></body></html>" > index.html
# Upload to claimed resource

Step 6 — Assess Impact and Report

# Determine impact based on resource type:
# - External JavaScript: Full XSS on all pages loading the script
# - External CSS: UI defacement, data exfiltration via CSS injection
# - External image/resource: Phishing, tracking
# - CNAME subdomain: Cookie theft, phishing, OAuth bypass

# Check if hijacked resource serves cookies for parent domain
# Check if hijacked subdomain is in OAuth redirect whitelist
# Verify if hijacked domain receives sensitive Referer headers

Key Concepts

Concept	Description
Broken Link Hijacking	Claiming control of external resources referenced by target website
Dangling CNAME	DNS CNAME record pointing to unclaimed or decommissioned service
Subdomain Takeover	Claiming a subdomain by provisioning the service its CNAME points to
External Script Hijacking	Registering expired domains that serve JavaScript loaded by target
Supply Chain Attack	Compromising external dependencies to inject malicious content
Dead Link	URL reference returning 404 or DNS resolution failure
Resource Fingerprinting	Identifying specific cloud services from error messages and headers

Tools & Systems

Tool	Purpose
broken-link-checker	Automated broken link discovery via web crawling
subjack	Subdomain takeover detection tool
nuclei	Template-based takeover detection scanner
can-i-take-over-xyz	Community database of services vulnerable to takeover
BadDNS	DNS auditing tool for detecting domain/subdomain takeovers
Wayback Machine	Historical URL analysis for discovering past external references

Common Scenarios

1. JavaScript Supply Chain — Register expired domain that serves JavaScript loaded by target; inject malicious code affecting all visitors
2. S3 Bucket Takeover — Claim deleted AWS S3 bucket referenced by target; serve malicious content or steal uploaded data
3. GitHub Pages Hijack — Create GitHub Pages repository matching dangling CNAME to serve phishing pages on target subdomain
4. Social Media Impersonation — Claim unclaimed social media handles linked from target website for brand impersonation
5. CDN Package Hijack — Claim deprecated npm packages referenced via CDN URLs to inject malicious JavaScript

Output Format

## Broken Link Hijacking Report
- **Target**: http://target.com
- **Total External Links**: 145
- **Dead Links**: 12
- **Hijackable Resources**: 3

### Findings
| # | Resource | Type | Status | Impact |
|---|----------|------|--------|--------|
| 1 | analytics.expired-domain.com | JavaScript | Domain available | Full XSS |
| 2 | assets.target.com -> S3 bucket | Static assets | Bucket deleted | Content injection |
| 3 | blog.target.com -> GitHub Pages | Subdomain | No GitHub repo | Subdomain takeover |

### Remediation
- Remove references to decommissioned external resources
- Delete dangling CNAME records for unused subdomains
- Implement Subresource Integrity (SRI) for external scripts
- Regularly audit external dependencies for availability
- Use Content Security Policy to restrict allowed script sources