DOM based XSS Prevention - OWASP Cheat Sheet Series Ensuring that all variables go through validation and are then escaped or sanitized is known as perfect injection resistance. In DOM-based cross-site scripting, the HTML source code and response of the attack . The most common source for DOM XSS is the URL, which is typically accessed with the window.location object. There are also TrustedScript and TrustedScriptURL objects for other sensitive sinks. If these methods are provided with untrusted input, then an XSS vulnerability could result. HTML Context refers to inserting a variable between two basic HTML tags like a
or . How to prevent DOM-based cross-site scripting? The Razor engine used in MVC automatically encodes all output sourced from variables, unless you work really hard to prevent it doing so. This cheatsheet addresses DOM (Document Object Model) based XSS and is an extension (and assumes comprehension of) the XSS Prevention Cheatsheet. There are also TrustedScript and TrustedScriptURL objects for other sensitive sinks. In order to add a variable to a HTML context safely, use HTML entity encoding for that variable as you add it to a web template. Before putting untrusted data into JavaScript place the data in an HTML element whose contents you retrieve at runtime. These frameworks steer developers towards good security practices and help mitigate XSS by using templating, auto-escaping, and more. Record your progression from Apprentice to Expert. This can be done via a function such as: There are several methods and attributes which can be used to directly render HTML content within JavaScript. Perpetrators can insert malicious code into a page due to modifying the DOM environment (Document Object Model) when it doesn't properly filter user input. DOM-Based Cross-Site Scripting (DOM XSS) | Learn AppSec - Invicti - owasp-CheatSheetSeries . Learn more about types of cross-site scripting attacks Some pure DOM-based vulnerabilities are self-contained within a single page. . Instead use JSON.toJSON() and JSON.parse() (Chris Schmidt). The attacker can manipulate this data to include XSS content on the webpage, for example, malicious JavaScript code. Spaces, quotes, punctuation and other unsafe characters will be percent encoded to their hexadecimal value, for example a space character will become %20. It is particularly common when applications leverage common JavaScript function calls such as document.baseURI to build a part of the page without sanitization. In a stored DOM XSS vulnerability, the server receives data from one request, stores it, and then includes the data in a later response. Instead you'll need to use the JavaScript debugger to determine whether and how your input is sent to a sink. Safe HTML Attributes include: align, alink, alt, bgcolor, border, cellpadding, cellspacing, class, color, cols, colspan, coords, dir, face, height, hspace, ismap, lang, marginheight, marginwidth, multiple, nohref, noresize, noshade, nowrap, ref, rel, rev, rows, rowspan, scrolling, shape, span, summary, tabindex, title, usemap, valign, value, vlink, vspace, width. Developers should use the following prevention steps to avoid introducing XSS into their application. This cheat sheet provides guidance to prevent XSS vulnerabilities. DOM-based XSS vulnerabilities usually arise when JavaScript takes data from an attacker-controllable source, such as the URL, and passes it to a sink that supports dynamic code execution, such as eval () or innerHTML. . If you're using JavaScript to change a CSS property, look into using style.property = x. You need to work through each available source in turn, and test each one individually. WAFs also dont address the root cause of an XSS vulnerability. We want to help you build beautiful, accessible, fast, and secure websites that work cross-browser, and for all of your users. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a misnomer. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks are a type of injection, in which malicious scripts are injected into otherwise benign and trusted websites. For example, you can use DOMPurify to sanitize an HTML snippet, removing XSS payloads. DOMPurify supports Trusted Types and will return sanitized HTML wrapped in a TrustedHTML object such that the browser does not generate a violation.CautionIf the sanitization logic in DOMPurify is buggy, your application might still have a DOM XSS vulnerability. For example, using the default configuration you might use a Razor HtmlHelper like so; When you view the source of the web page you will see it has been rendered as follows, with the Chinese text encoded; To widen the characters treated as safe by the encoder you would insert the following line into the ConfigureServices() method in startup.cs; This example widens the safe list to include the Unicode Range CjkUnifiedIdeographs. Before putting untrusted data inside an HTML element ensure it's HTML encoded. Parsing HTML input is difficult, if not impossible. Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support. Trusted Types heavily reduce the DOM XSS attack surface of your application. View the source code of this file and note the following JavaScript code snippet: Essentially, the exploit uses the window.location.hash source, which is evaluated in an HTML element sink. In practice, different sources and sinks have differing properties and behavior that can affect exploitability, and determine what techniques are necessary. Output encoding is the primary defense against cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. The styling will not be rendered. An attacker can execute a DOM-based cross-site scripting attack if the web application writes user-supplied information directly to the Document Object Model (DOM) and there is no sanitization. XSS is one of the most common and dangerous web vulnerabilities, and it is . This enables attackers to execute malicious JavaScript, which typically allows them to hijack other users' accounts. Try to refactor your code to remove references to unsafe sinks like innerHTML, and instead use textContent or value. The HTML encoded value above is still executable. In order to mitigate against the CSS url() method, ensure that you are URL encoding the data passed to the CSS url() method. This is the appropriate step to take when outputting data in a rendering context, however using HTML Attribute encoding in an execution context will break the application display of data. //any code passed into lName is now executable. *Encoder.Default then the default, Basic Latin only safelist will be used. Examples of some JavaScript sandbox / sanitizers: Don't eval() JSON to convert it to native JavaScript objects. Because the data was introduced in JavaScript code and passed to a URL subcontext the appropriate server-side encoding would be the following: Or if you were using ECMAScript 5 with an immutable JavaScript client-side encoding libraries you could do the following: There are a number of open source encoding libraries out there: Some work on a block list while others ignore important characters like "<" and ">". For XSS attacks to be successful, an attacker needs to insert and execute malicious content in a webpage. Use untrusted data on only the right side of an expression, especially data that looks like code and may be passed to the application (e.g., location and eval()). Dangerous contexts include: Don't place variables into dangerous contexts as even with output encoding, it will not prevent an XSS attack fully. A rendering context is associated with the parsing of HTML tags and their attributes. Avoid treating untrusted data as code or markup within JavaScript code. DOM based XSS vulnerabilities therefore have to be prevented on the client side. If data is read from a user-controlled source like the URL, then passed to the attr() function, then it may be possible to manipulate the value sent to cause XSS. Input validation. DOM Based Attacks. This brings up an interesting design point. For example, when your application passes a string to innerHTML, the browser sends the following report: This says that in https://my.url.example/script.js on line 39 innerHTML was called with the string beginning with <img src=x. The document.write sink works with script elements, so you can use a simple payload, such as the one below: Note, however, that in some situations the content that is written to document.write includes some surrounding context that you need to take account of in your exploit. Using the right combination of defensive techniques is necessary to prevent XSS. To prevent server-side XSS, don't generate HTML by concatenating strings and use safe contextual-autoescaping templating libraries instead. The best way to fix DOM based cross-site scripting is to use the right output method (sink). Most commonly, a developer will add a parameter or URL fragment to a URL base that is then displayed or used in some operation. What's the difference between Pro and Enterprise Edition? Each parser has distinct and separate semantics in the way they can possibly execute script code which make creating consistent rules for mitigating vulnerabilities in various contexts difficult. ESAPI is one of the few which works on an allow list and encodes all non-alphanumeric characters. You can deploy a report collector (such as the open-source go-csp-collector), or use one of the commercial equivalents. Prevent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) in ASP.NET Core If you have to use user input on your page, always use it in the text context, never as HTML tags or any other potential code. How to Prevent Cross Site Scripting | XSS Attack Prevention When URL encoding in DOM be aware of character set issues as the character set in JavaScript DOM is not clearly defined (Mike Samuel). In addition, WAFs also miss a class of XSS vulnerabilities that operate exclusively client-side. Finally, to fix the problem in our initial code, instead of trying to encode the output correctly which is a hassle and can easily go wrong we would simply use element.textContent to write it in a content like this: It does the same thing but this time it is not vulnerable to DOM based cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. If you use the default encoders then any you applied to character ranges to be treated as safe won't take effect - the default encoders use the safest encoding rules possible. The most common one would be adding it to an href or src attribute of an tag. Looking to understand what cross-site scripting (XSS) is and the various techniques used by attackers? It uses the Document Object Model (DOM), which is a standard way to represent HTML objects in a hierarchical manner. DOM based XSS Prevention Cheat Sheet - GitHub Except for alphanumeric characters, encode all characters with the HTML Entity, Except for alphanumeric characters, encode all characters with the, Out of date framework plugins or components, Where URLs are handled in code such as this CSS { background-url : javascript:alert(xss); }. Avoid methods such as document.innerHTML and instead use safer functions, for example, document.innerText and document.textContent. The payload can be manipulated to deface the target application using a prompt that states: Your session has expired. Note that the browser's "View source" option won't work for DOM XSS testing because it doesn't take account of changes that have been performed in the HTML by JavaScript. For example if you want to use user input to write in a div tag element don't use innerHtml, instead use innerText or textContent. Despite being rare, they may cause serious problems and only a few scanners can detect them. DOM-based cross-site scripting (DOM XSS) is a web vulnerability, a subtype of cross-site scripting. The Impact of Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerabilities and their Prevention However, frameworks aren't perfect and security gaps still exist in popular frameworks like React and Angular. There are many different output encoding methods because browsers parse HTML, JS, URLs, and CSS differently. This is because these sinks treat the variable as text and will never execute it. It uses the Document Object Model (DOM), which is a standard way to represent HTML objects in a hierarchical manner. XSS attacks occur when an attacker uses a web application to send malicious code, generally in the form of a browser side script, to a different end user. Copyright 2021 - CheatSheets Series Team - This work is licensed under a, "<%=ESAPI.encoder().encodeForJavascript(ESAPI.encoder().encodeForHTML(untrustedData))%>", // In the following line of code, companyName represents untrusted user input, // The ESAPI.encoder().encodeForHTMLAttribute() is unnecessary and causes double-encoding, '<%=ESAPI.encoder().encodeForJavascript(ESAPI.encoder().encodeForHTMLAttribute(companyName))%>', '<%=ESAPI.encoder().encodeForJavascript(companyName)%>', // In the line of code below, the encoded data on the right (the second argument to setAttribute). HTML attribute encoding is a superset of HTML encoding and encodes additional characters such as " and '. Cookie attributes try to limit the impact of an XSS attack but dont prevent the execution of malicious content or address the root cause of the vulnerability. The reasoning behind this is to protect against unknown or future browser bugs (previous browser bugs have tripped up parsing based on the processing of non-English characters). 99% of the time it is an indication of bad or lazy programming practice, so simply don't do it instead of trying to sanitize the input. There will be situations where you use a URL in different contexts. The DOM-based cross-site scripting requires the user to open an infected page. If you sanitize content and then modify it afterwards, you can easily void your security efforts. Consider adopting the following controls in addition to the above. Customization of the safe list only affects encoders sourced via DI. A list of output encoding libraries is included in the appendix. On the client side, the HTTP response does not change but the script executes in malicious manner. Cross Site Scripting Prevention Cheat Sheet - OWASP Cross Site Scripting PreventionProtect and Prevent XSS XSS sinks are places where variables are placed into your webpage. Note that browsers behave differently with regards to URL-encoding, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari will URL-encode location.search and location.hash, while IE11 and Microsoft Edge (pre-Chromium) will not URL-encode these sources. Sometimes you can't change the offending code. With Trusted Types enabled, the browser throws a TypeError and prevents use of a DOM XSS sink with a string. . What is DOM-based XSS (cross-site scripting)? - Invicti In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes. These types of attacks typically occur as a result . It is important to note that when setting an HTML attribute which does not execute code, the value is set directly within the object attribute of the HTML element so there is no concerns with injecting up. Additionally, the website's scripts might perform validation or other processing of data that must be accommodated when attempting to exploit a vulnerability. There are two distinct groups of cross-site scripting. Please note, element.setAttribute is only safe for a limited number of attributes. This enables attackers to execute malicious JavaScript, which typically allows them to hijack other users' accounts. So HTML encoding cannot be used to allow the developer to have alternate representations of the tag for example. The data is subsequently read from the DOM by the web application and outputted to the browser. This is because the rule to HTML attribute encode in an HTML attribute rendering context is necessary in order to mitigate attacks which try to exit out of an HTML attributes or try to add additional attributes which could lead to XSS. Trusted Types are supported in Chrome 83, and a polyfill is available for other browsers. Get your questions answered in the User Forum. Read more about DOM-based cross-site scripting.
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