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posted by chromas on Tuesday January 22 2019, @03:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the yoink dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Websites Can Exploit Browser Extensions to Steal User Data

While web applications are bound by the Same Origin Policy (SOP) and cannot access data from other web applications unless mechanisms such as Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) are implemented into both, browser extensions are not subject to the same rule, meaning they can read and write data on web applications.

The extensions also have access to a broad range of sensitive user information, including browsing history, bookmarks, credentials (cookies) and list of installed extensions, and can download files and store them on the user’s device.

Browser extensions and web applications are executed in separate contexts, but they can interact by exchanging messages, regardless of the browser. This allows web applications to exploit extension privileged capabilities and steal sensitive user information, Dolière Francis Somé from the Université Côte d'Azur, Inria, France, says in a research paper (PDF).

The researcher analyzed the communication interfaces exposed to web applications by Chrome, Firefox, and Opera browser extensions and discovered that many of them can be exploited for access to privileged capabilities. 

“Through extensions’ APIs, web applications can bypass SOP and access user data on any other web application,” Somé explains.

“Our results demonstrate that the communications between browser extensions and web applications pose serious security and privacy threats to browsers, web applications and more importantly to users,” the researcher continues.


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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:28AM (4 children)

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:28AM (#789970) Homepage Journal

    From TFA:

    Manual analysis then revealed 197 unique extensions (171 for Chrome, 16 for Firefox, and 10 for Opera) that can be maliciously exploited by web applications or scripts injected into these web apps.
    [...]
    The findings were reported to the vendors in October 2018 and all three acknowledged the issues. Firefox has removed the extensions and Opera removed 8 out of 10. Discussion with the Chrome team continues on the proper action to take on these extensions.

    I never liked Chrome and don't use it. I'm not sure what other folks see in it.

    Apparently, this is another good reason not to use it.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday January 22 2019, @08:03AM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday January 22 2019, @08:03AM (#789986) Journal

    If you look at Table I, you'll see that they tested 66,401 Chrome extensions, but only 9,391 Firefox extensions and just 2,523 Opera extensions. Which means that 0.26% of all tested Chrome extensions, 0.17% of all tested Firefox extensions and 0.40% of all tested Opera extensions were vulnerable. In other words, while Firefox is better than Chrome in this respect, its advantage is far less than the numbers you quoted suggest. And Opera is actually worse than Chrome.

    You do have a point on the response by the corresponding providers, though.

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    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 22 2019, @10:14AM

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Tuesday January 22 2019, @10:14AM (#790011) Homepage Journal

      Which means that 0.26% of all tested Chrome extensions, 0.17% of all tested Firefox extensions and 0.40% of all tested Opera extensions were vulnerable. In other words, while Firefox is better than Chrome in this respect, its advantage is far less than the numbers you quoted suggest. And Opera is actually worse than Chrome.

      A good point. I did some cursory poking around and discovered that determining the total number of extensions available for each browser (not counting extensions that aren't available through the relevant cetralized add-ons/extensions sites for each browser -- HTTPS Everywhere for example), would be a time consuming task. As such, it's likely that the number of vulnerable extensions is higher (perhaps significantly higher) than the number of vulnerable extensions found in the study.

      Interestingly, Figure 3 [inria.fr] details the distribution of users per extension. More than half of the extensions tested have fewer than 1000 users.

      It's rather annoying that the specific extensions found to be vulnerable were not detailed. It's unclear why that is. I could hazard a few guesses, but I'll refrain for the moment.

      You do have a point on the response by the corresponding providers, though.

      That was the primary point I was making, given Google's (non)response.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @10:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @10:33AM (#790014)

    The alternative at work is IE11.
    Well, there's Edge, but we're discussing web browsers here not a pile of crap that isn't ready for beta release.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:49AM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:49AM (#791046) Homepage

    How does the quality of a random sample of extensions have any relation to the quality of a web browser? The fact that all three browsers have vulnerable extensions means all three browsers expose extension APIs that can be misused. The specific numbers mean absolutely nothing; they could mean that more amateurs write extensions for Chrome rather than Firefox (like for padding a resume, say), or that Firefox takes down extensions from its extension store more readily than Chrome (which may or may not be a good thing).

    Per your signature, I suggest you try being logical instead of thinking with what I assume is your Chrome hate-boner.

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