Path Cutter: Severing the Self-Propagation Path of XSS JavaScript Worms in Social Web Networks Yinzhi Cao, Vinod Yegneswaran, Phillip Porras, and Yan Chen Northwestern University, Evanston, IL SRI International, Menlo Park, CA NDSS Symposium /05/14 曾毓傑 1

Outline Introduction Design Implementation Evaluation Performance Discussion 2

INTRODUCTION 3

Self-Propagating XSS Attacks 4 Samy’s Page User’s Page (1) Access (2) Gain Page DOM Access MySpace (4) Post Malicious Data onto User’s Wall (5) Affect Other Users... (3) Send Forge Request User

XSS Taxonomy Server-side XSS Attacks Stored XSS (Persistent) Reflected XSS (Non-Persistent) Client-side XSS Attacks Plug-in XSS (e.g. Flash, Java) Content Sniffing XSS DOM-based XSS 5

Path Cutter Path Cutter can successfully block all kinds of XSS attack for self-propagation Easy implementation on both server-side and proxy server 6

Problem Definition Exploitation of a web application vulnerability that enables an attacker to inject client-side scripts into web pages owned by other users. Four steps of Self-Propagating XSS Attack: Step 1 – Enticement and Exploitation Step 2 – Privilege Escalation Step 3 – Replication Step 4 – Propagation 7

Related Work Spectator System – track propagation activity Sun et al. – Firefox plug-in Xu et al. – monitor social graph 8

DESIGN 9

Main Mechanisms View Separation Request Authentication 10

Key Concepts Views A form of a web page or a part of web page Actions An operation belonging to a view Access Control List (ACL) Actions which a view can perform Capability A secret key to validate a request 11

Dividing Web Applications into Views Based on semantics User A’s blog website User B’s blog website Based on URLs Based on elements Blogpost User Comments 12

View Separation Isolate different pages/views from the server at the client side Taking advantage of Same-Origin-Policy to prevent DOM access and request forgery 13 User B’s Blogpost User A Login User B’s Blogpost User A Login

Request Authentication Authenticate actions using: Secret Tokens/Capability A secret token per view which is not be able to guess, and server-side verify this token to accept the request Referer-based View Validation Check if an action is permitted from certain view in the access control list(ACL) 14 Referer: POST Referer: User B’s Blogpost User A Login

IMPLEMENTATION 15

Server-side Implementation WordPress Open Source Blog System Totally 43 lines of code modification URLs Separation Elgg Open Social Network Engine Totally 2 lines of code modification and 23 lines of plug-in Isolate comment add form into different view 16 echo "<iframe style = ’background:inherit;border:0;margin:0;padding:0’ sandbox=’allow-forms’ scrolling=’no’ height=’400pt’ width=’100%’ src=’ array(’body’ => $form_body, action’ => "{$vars[’url’]}action/comments/add")))."’/>";

Proxy Implementation Facebook Separate user comments into views, and use different URL to get comment contents 17 FacebookProxy (1) Request content.x.com (2) Redirect isolate.x.com (3) Request isolate.x.com (4) isolate.x.com contents (5) Request content.x.com/?token=*** (6)(7)

Proxy Implementation (Cont.) User comment separation using echo server user comment... Proxy content modification... <iframe scrolling="no" height="100%" sandbox src=“

EVALUATION 19

Case 1: Boonana Worm Java Applet worm released in October 2010 Propagation Steps: 1. Visit a profile with malicious Java Applet 2. Escalate privilege and inject JavaScript into page in client-side using Java vulnerability 3. Post itself on visitor's wall Path Cutter let Java Applet only gain privilege on isolated page 20

Case 2: Renren Worm Flash-based worm spread on the Renren Social Network in 2009 Propagation Steps: 1. Visit a profile with malicious Flash Object 2. Escalate privilege and inject JavaScript into page in client-side using Flash vulnerability 3. Replicate itself on the visitor’s wall Path Cutter block sharing request by isolated views 21

Case 3: MySpace Samy Worm First XSS worms in MySpace in 2005 Propagation Steps: 1. Visit a profile with malicious code in a style attribute of tag 2. Use XMLHttpRequest to get a secret token 3. Post itself on visitor’s profile using the secret token Path Cutter make XMLHttpRequest unaccessible by view isolation 22

Case 4: SpaceFlash Worm Flash-based worm on MySpace in 2006 Propagation Steps: 1. Visit a “About Me” page with malicious Flash Object 2. Access user’s profile to gain privilege 3. Send AJAX request to post itself on visitor’s “About Me” page Path Cutter block post request since referer is not “About Me” page 23

Case 5: Yamanner Worm JavaScript worm spreading in Yahoo! Mail in 2006 Propagation Steps: 1. Victim open a malicious and JavaScript executed due to a bug in Yahoo!’s script filter 2. Worm open victim’s address book and send to those who are listed in the book Path Cutter deny sending request because there is no secret token in the request 24

Experimental Worms Proof-of-Concept worm Implementation of worm template Apply on WordPress and Elgg 25 check_infected(); // check if the user is infected or not xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest; xmlhttp.open("POST", post_url,true); xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() { if (xmlhttp.readyState==4) { set_infected(); } xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-length", payload.length); xmlhttp.send(payload); function xhr() {... } Object.prototype.post = function(uri,arg) { /*** usage: xhr().post(’foo.php’); ***/ this.open(’POST’, uri, true); this.setRequestHeader(’Content-type’,’application/x-www-form-urlencoded’);... this.send(arg); }; /*** source morphing component ***/ Object.prototype.morph = function(s) {... switch(morphtype) { case "unicode":... case "charcodes":... }

PERFORMANCE 26

Memory Overhead tags introduce memory overhead < 10 frames  < 10% memory overhead ~ 45 frames  ~ 30% memory overhead 27

Rendering Time Overhead Observing onload event in Webpage Elgg implementation: 1.14 secs  1.18 secs (3.5%) 28

DISSCUSSION 29

Limitation Cookie and Content Stealing Attacks Phishing and ClickJacking Attacks Drive-by Download Worms 30

Conclusion Implement view separation and http request authentication to severing self-propagating XSS attack 31