Automatic and Context-Aware Cross-Site Scripting Filter Evasion

Fabrizio díAmore () and Mauro Gentile ()
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Fabrizio díAmore: Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"
Mauro Gentile: Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

No 2012-04, DIAG Technical Reports from Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

Abstract: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a pervasive vulnerability that involves a huge portion of modern web applications. Implementing a correct and complete XSS filter for user-generated content can really be a challenge for web developers. Many aspects have to be taken into account sincethe attackers may continuously show off a potentially unlimited armory. This work proposes an approach and a tool ñ named snuck ñ for web application penetration testing, which can definitely help in finding hard-to-spot and advanced XSS vulnerabilities. This methodology is based on the inspection of the inject ionís reflection context and relies on a set of specialized and obfuscated attack vectors for bypassing filter based protections, adopted against potentially harmful inputs. In addition, XSS testing is performed in-browser, this means that a web browser is driven in reproducing the attacker and possibly the victim behavior. Results of several tests on many popular Content Management Systems proved the benefits of this approach: no other web vulnerability scanner would have been able to discover some advanced ways to bypass robust XSS filters.

Keywords: Computer security; Network Security; Web Application Security; Browser Security; Vulnerability Detection; Cross-site Scripting; XSS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2012-04
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