TL;DR
This paper introduces a timing analysis method for detecting hidden web caches without relying on cache status headers, achieving high accuracy and revealing vulnerabilities in real-world websites.
Contribution
A novel cache detection technique using timing analysis that works independently of cache headers, enabling large-scale discovery of hidden caches and vulnerabilities.
Findings
Achieved 89.6% accuracy in cache detection.
Identified 5.8% of top websites with hidden caches.
Detected 1.02% of caches vulnerable to Web Cache Deception.
Abstract
Web caches play a crucial role in web performance and scalability. However, detecting cached responses is challenging when web servers do not reliably communicate the cache status through standardized headers. This paper presents a novel methodology for cache detection using timing analysis. Our approach eliminates the dependency on cache status headers, making it applicable to any web server. The methodology relies on sending paired requests using HTTP multiplexing functionality and makes heavy use of cache-busting to control the origin of the responses. By measuring the time it takes to receive responses from paired requests, we can determine if a response is cached or not. In each pair, one request is cache-busted to force retrieval from the origin server, while the other request is not and might be served from the cache, if present. A faster response time for the non-cache-busted…
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