Let's say you don't want other sites to "frame" your site in an <iframe>
:
<iframe src="http://example.org"></iframe>
So you insert anti-framing, frame busting JavaScript into all your pages:
/* break us out of any containing iframes */
if (top != self) { top.location.replace(self.location.href); }
Excellent! Now you "bust" or break out of any containing iframe automatically. Except for one small problem.
As it turns out, your frame-busting code can be busted, as shown here:
<script type="text/javascript">
var prevent_bust = 0
window.onbeforeunload = function() { prevent_bust++ }
setInterval(function() {
if (prevent_bust > 0) {
prevent_bust -= 2
window.top.location = 'http://example.org/page-which-responds-with-204'
}
}, 1)
</script>
This code does the following:
- increments a counter every time the browser attempts to navigate away from the current page, via the
window.onbeforeunload
event handler - sets up a timer that fires every millisecond via
setInterval()
, and if it sees the counter incremented, changes the current location to a server of the attacker's control - that server serves up a page with HTTP status code 204, which does not cause the browser to navigate anywhere
My question is -- and this is more of a JavaScript puzzle than an actual problem -- how can you defeat the frame-busting buster?
I had a few thoughts, but nothing worked in my testing:
- attempting to clear the
onbeforeunload
event viaonbeforeunload = null
had no effect - adding an
alert()
stopped the process let the user know it was happening, but did not interfere with the code in any way; clicking OK lets the busting continue as normal - I can't think of any way to clear the
setInterval()
timer
I'm not much of a JavaScript programmer, so here's my challenge to you: hey buster, can you bust the frame-busting buster?
I'm not sure if this is viable or not - but if you can't break the frame, why not just display a warning. For example, If your page isn't the "top page" create a setInterval method that tries to break the frame. If after 3 or 4 tries your page still isn't the top page - create a div element that covers the whole page (modal box) with a message and a link like...
Not the best, but I don't see any way they could script their way out of that.
I might just have just gotten a way to bust the frame buster buster javascript. Using the getElementsByName in my javascript function, i've set a loop between the frame buster and the actual frame buster buster script. check this post out. http://www.phcityonweb.com/frame-buster-buster-buster-2426
I'm going to be brave and throw my hat into the ring on this one (ancient as it is), see how many downvotes I can collect.
Here is my attempt, which does seem to work everywhere I have tested it (Chrome20, IE8 and FF14):
I placed this code in the
<head>
and called it from the end of the<body>
to ensure my page is rendered before it starts arguing with the malicious code, don't know if this is the best approach, YMMV.How does it work?
...I hear you ask - well the honest answer is, I don't really know. It took a lot of fudging about to make it work everywhere I was testing, and the exact effect that it has varies slightly depending on where you run it.
Here is the thinking behind it:
For my
http://mysite.tld/page-that-takes-a-while-to-load
(the target of the XHR) I used a PHP script that looks like this:What happens?
Can't you avoid the wait time in Chrome and Firefox?
Apparently not. At first I pointed the XHR to a URL that would return a 404 - this didn't work in Firefox. Then I tried the
sleep(5);
approach that I eventually landed on for this answer, then I started playing around with the sleep length in various ways. I could find no real pattern to the behaviour, but I did find that if it is too short, specifically Firefox will not play ball (Chrome and IE seem to be fairly well behaved). I don't know what the definition of "too short" is in real terms, but 5 seconds seems to work every time.If any passing Javascript ninjas want to explain a little better what's going on, why this is (probably) wrong, unreliable, the worst code they've ever seen etc I'll happily listen.
FWIW, most current browsers support the X-Frame-Options: deny directive, which works even when script is disabled.
IE8:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/27/ie8-security-part-vii-clickjacking-defenses.aspx
Firefox (3.6.9)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=475530
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/The_X-FRAME-OPTIONS_response_header
Chrome/Webkit
http://blog.chromium.org/2010/01/security-in-depth-new-security-features.html
http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/42333
If you add an alert right after the buster code, then the alert will stall the javascript thread, and it will let the page load. This is what StackOverflow does, and it busts out of my iframes, even when I use the frame busting buster. It also worked with my simple test page. This has only been tested in Firefox 3.5 and IE7 on windows.
Code:
Ok, so we know that were in a frame. So we location.href to another special page with the path as a GET variable. We now explain to the user what is going on and provide a link with a target="_TOP" option. It's simple and would probably work (haven't tested it), but it requires some user interaction. Maybe you could point out the offending site to the user and make a hall of shame of click jackers to your site somewhere.. Just an idea, but it night work..