IBM WebSphere

WebSphere is a Java EE application server provided by IBM, used to deploy and manage enterprise-level Java applications.

Discovery & Fuzzing

Fuzz for IBM WebSphere specific endpoints using this wordlist: https://github.com/kkrypt0nn/wordlists/blob/main/wordlists/vulnerabilities/websphere.txt

Fuzz for files with the following extensions: *.do *.jsp *.jsv *.jsw


Missing Authorization in administrative servlets

You may find some interesting administrative endpoints lacking authentication. One particular endpoint is the snoop servlet, typically located at the server's webroot: https://example.com/snoop/

IBM WebSphere contains several default servlets. Check them out here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/was/8.5.5?topic=applications-default-application

snoop is a diagnostic servlet that displays detailed information about incoming HTTP requests, including headers, parameters, session attributes, and environment details.

It’s intended for debugging and administration, and should not be exposed in production environments due to the amount of internal data it reveals.


While uncommon, you may find that the snoop servlet lacks authentication. In that case, you can chain it with an XSS vulnerability (if present) to gain access to any user's session cookies.

In particular, the snoop endpoint prints back the request's headers, including cookies with HTTPOnly set, just like an HTTP TRACE request.

By leveraging this mechanism, you can read the user's session cookie inside the snoop response body and access the web application with it.