Protect against browser extension injected Javascr

问题:

Browsers allow extensions to inject code, manipulate the DOM, etc.

Over the years, I have noticed lots and various uncaught errors (using window.onerror) on a website (app) I am watching, generated by unknown browser extensions on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer (all versions).

These errors didn't seem to be interrupting anything. Now I want to increase the security of this website, because it will start processing credit cards. I have seen with my own eyes malware/spyware infecting browsers with modified browser extensions (innocent browser extension, modified to report to attackers/script kiddies) working as keyloggers (using trivial onkey* event handlers, or just input.value checks).

Is there a way (meta tag, etc.) to inform a browser to disallow code injection or reading the DOM, standard or non-standard? The webpage is already SSL, yet this doesn't seem to matter (as in give a hint to the browser to activate stricter security for extensions).

.

Possible workarounds (kind of a stretch vs. a simple meta tag) suggested by others or off the top of my head:

• Virtual keyboard for entering numbers + non textual inputs (aka img for digits)
• remote desktop using Flash (someone suggested HTML5, yet that doesn't solve the browser extension listening on keyboard events; only Flash, Java, etc. can).
• Very complex Javascript based protection (removes non white listed event listeners, in-memory input values along with inputs protected with actual asterix characters, etc.) (not feasible, unless it already exists)
• Browser extension with the role of an antivirus or which could somehow protect a specific webpage (this is not feasible, maybe not even possible without creating a huge array of problems)

Edit: Google Chrome disables extensions in Incognito Mode, however, there is no standard way to detect or automatically enable Incognito Mode and so a permanent warning must be displayed.

回答1:

This isn't a full on solution, but you can get around the key logging by using a javascript prompt. I wrote a little test case (which ended up getting a little out of hand). This test case does the following:

• Uses a prompt() to ask for the credit card number on focus.
• Provides a failsafe when users check "prevent additional dialogs" or if the user is somehow able to type in the CC field
• Periodically checks to make sure event handlers haven't been removed or spoofed and rebinds/ warns the user when necessary.

http://jsfiddle.net/ryanwheale/wQTtf/

Tested in IE7+, Chrome, FF 3.6+, Android 2.3.5, iPad 2 (iOS 6.0)

回答2:

Being able to disable someone's browser extension usually implies taking over the browser. I don't think it's possible. It would be a huge security risk. Your purpose maybe legit, but consider the scenario of webmasters programatically disabling addblockers for users in order to get them to view the advertisments.

In the end it's the user's responsability to make sure they have a clean OS when making online banking transactions. It's not the website's fault that the user is compromised

UPDATE We should wrap things up. Something like:

<meta name="disable-extension-feature" content="read-dom" />

or

<script type="text/javascript">
    Browser.MakeExtension.MallwareLogger.to.not.read.that.user.types(true);
</script>

doesn't exist and i'm sure there won't be implemented in the near future. Use any means necessary to best use the current up to date existing technologies and design your app as best as you can security wise. Don't waste your energy trying to cover for users who souldn't be making payments over the internet in the first place

回答3:

Your question is interesting, and thoughtful (+1'd), however unfortunately the proposed security does not provide real security, thus no browser will ever implement it.

One of the core principle on browser/web/network security is to resist from the desire of implementing a bogus security feature. Web will be less secure with the feature than without!

Hear me out:

Everything execute on the client-side can be manipulated. Browsers are just another HTTP clients that talks to server; server should never ever trust the computation result, or checks done in front-end Javascript. If someone can simply bypass your "security" check code executed in a browser with a extension, they can surely fire the HTTP request directly to your server with curl to do that. At least, in a browser, skilled users can turn to Firebug or Web Inspector and bypass your script, just like what you do when you debug your website.

The <meta> tag stopping extensions from injection does make the website more robust, but not more secure. There are a thousand ways to write robust JavaScript than praying for not having an evil extension. Hide your global functions/objects being one of them, and perform environment sanity check being another. GMail checks for Firebug, for example. Many websites detects Ad block.

The <meta> tag does make sense in terms of privacy (again, not security). There should be a way to tell the browser that the information currently present in the DOM is sensitive (e.g. my bank balance) and should not be exposed to third parties. Yet, if an user uses OS from vender A, browser from vender B, extension from vender C without reading through it's source code to know exactly what they do, the user have already stated his trust to these venders. Your website will not be at fault here. Users who really cares about privacy will turn to their trusted OS and browser, and use another profile or private mode of the browser to check their sensitive information.

Conclusion: If you do all the input checks on sever-side (again), your website is secure enough that no <meta> tag can make it more secure. Well done!

回答4:

This wont work, but i'll try something around document.createElement = function(){}; That should affect client side scripts (greasemonkey)

You can also try to submit the current DOM using an hidden input myform.onsubmit=function(){myform.hiddeninput.value=document.body.innerHTML;} and check server side for unwanted DOM elements. I guess using a server side generated id/token on every element can help here (as injected DOM node will surely miss it)

=> page should look like

<html uniqueid="121234"> <body uniqueid="121234"><form  uniqueid="121234"> ...

So finding un-tracked elements in the POST action should be easy (using xpath for example)

<?php
simplexml_load_string($_POST['currentdom'])->xpath("*:not(@uniqueid)") //style

Something around that for the DOM injection issue.

As for the keylogging part, i don't think you can do anything to prevent keylogger from a client side perspective (except using virtual keyboard & so), as there is no way to discern them from the browser internals. If you are paranoid, you should try a 100% canvas generated design (mimicking HTML element & interaction) as this might protect you (no DOM element to be bound to), but that would mean creating a browser in a browser.

回答5:

I saw something similar being done many times, although the protection was directed in the other way: quite a few sites, when they offer sensitive information in a form of text would use a Flash widget to display the text (for example, e-mail addresses, which would be otherwise found by bots and spammed).

Flash applet may be configured to reject any code that comes from the HTML page, actually, unless you specifically expect this to be possible, it will not work out of the box. Flash also doesn't re-dispatch events to the browser, so if the keylogger works on the browser level, it won't be able to log the keys pressed. Certainly, Flash has its own disadvantages, but given all other options this seems the most feasible one. So, you don't need remote desktop via Flash, simple embedded applet will be just as good. Also, Flash alone can't be used to make a fully-functional remote desktop client, you'd be looking into NaCl or JavaFX, which would make this only usable by corporate users and only eventually by private users.

Other things to consider: write your own extension. Making Firefox extension is really easy + you could reuse a lot of your JavaScript code since it can also use JavaScript. I never wrote a Google Chrome or MSIE extension, but I would imagine it's not much more difficult. But you don't need to turn it into an antivirus extension. With the tools available, you could make it so no other extension can eavesdrop on what's going on inside your own extension. I'm not sure how friendly your audience will greet that, but if you are targeting corporate sector, then that audience is, in a way, a very good one, as they don't get to choose their tools... so you can just obligate them to use the extension.

Any more ideas? - well, this one is very straight-forward and efficient: have users open a pop-up window / separate tab and disable JavaScript in it :) I mean, you could decline to accept a credit card info if the JavaScript is enabled in the browser - obviously, it is very easy to check. This would require some mental effort from the users to find the setting, where they can disable it + they will be raging over a pop-up window... but almost certainly this will disable all code injection :)

回答6:

And just that we all know we cannot explicitly block the extensions from our code, one another way can be to find the list of event listeners attached to key fields like password, ssn and also events on body like keypress, keyup, keydown and verify whether the listener belongs to your code, if not just throw a flash message to disable addons.

And you can attach mutation events to your page and see if there are some new nodes being created / generated by a third party apart from your code.

ok its obvious that you will get into performance issues, but thats a trade off for your security.

any takers ?