⚠️ Overview

SSTIMap is an automated open-source tool designed specifically for detecting and exploiting Server-Side Template Injection (SSTI) vulnerabilities. It was created by security researcher Vladimir “vladko” and is maintained on GitHub at https://github.com/vladko/SSTIMap. The tool emerged around 2018 as a dedicated SSTI counterpart to sqlmap, targeting the growing number of web applications using template engines such as Jinja2, Twig, Freemarker, Velocity, and Mako. It is frequently used by penetration testers and malicious actors alike to perform deep reconnaissance and gain remote code execution on vulnerable servers.

🔧 Technical Capabilities

SSTIMap operates by injecting malicious template syntax into HTTP parameters, headers, cookies, and even JSON payloads. It supports both reflected and blind SSTI exploitation, employing techniques like time-based delays and out-of-band data exfiltration (using DNS or HTTP callbacks) to confirm injection points. The tool integrates a payload library derived from public cheat sheets and the HackTricks repository, automatically matching payloads to over 15 template engines. It can enumerate underlying system information, read arbitrary files (e.g., /etc/passwd), and execute shell commands via template sandbox escapes. Additionally, SSTIMap offers a “shell” mode for interactive command execution and can generate standalone PoC scripts. The tool uses multi-threading to test large numbers of injection points quickly, making it highly effective for large-scale scanning of parameterized endpoints.

📜 History & Notable Incidents

First publicly committed on GitHub in 2017, SSTIMap gained traction during the rise of SSTI awareness after the release of the PortSwigger SSTI research paper. It was notably used in targeted attacks against enterprise CMS platforms running outdated versions of Twig and Jinja2, as documented in several bug bounty reports on HackerOne. While no specific CVE is assigned to SSTIMap itself, it was employed to exploit CVE-2017-1000028 (a remote code execution in Jenkins templates) and CVE-2018-3760 (Ruby on Rails’ file read through template injection). The tool continues to be updated with new detection heuristics for modern sandbox bypasses, including the 2024 bypass of Python’s restrictedglobals in Jinja2 used in AWS Lambda runtime environments.

🔍 Detection Indicators

The default User-Agent string is “SSTIMap/1.0”, though most operators modify this to mimic common browsers; behavioral fingerprinting is more reliable. Incoming requests containing template syntax (e.g., {{7*7}}, #{7*7}, ${{7*7}}) in query parameters, POST bodies, or headers such as X-Forwarded-For are strong indicators. SSTIMap also sends probes with unique timing delays (e.g., sleep(10) in Jinja2) and outbound DNS queries to known community monitoring domains (e.g., Burp Collaborator or interactsh). Logs showing rapid, sequential requests to numerous endpoints with these patterns are almost certainly SSTIMap.

☠️ Risk & Impact

A successful SSTI exploit via SSTIMap can lead to full remote code execution on the web server, allowing an attacker to install backdoors, exfiltrate sensitive databases, pivot into internal networks, or deploy ransomware. In cloud environments, template injection can provide access to container escape or cloud metadata credentials (e.g., IMDS endpoints). The tool also enables reading application source code and configuration files, potentially exposing API keys, database passwords, and other critical secrets.

🛡️ Mitigation

SSTIMap is immediately blocked on detection because it aggressively probes for remote code execution vulnerabilities that can compromise the entire application stack. Automated blocking of requests containing suspicious template syntax combined with origin IP reputation filtering effectively neutralizes the threat before exploitation can occur.

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