Cross-Site Scripting Attack Lab (Elgg)

Overview

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications. This vulnerability makes it possible for attackers to inject malicious code (e.g. JavaScripts) into victim's web browser. Using this malicious code, the attackers can steal the victim's credentials, such as cookies. The access control policies (i.e., the same origin policy) employed by the browser to protect those credentials can be bypassed by exploiting the XSS vulnerability. Vulnerabilities of this kind have been exploited to craft powerful phishing attacks and browser exploits.

To demonstrate what attackers can do by exploiting XSS vulnerabilities, we have set up a web application named Elgg in our pre-built Ubuntu VM image. Elgg is a very popular open-source web application for social network, and it has implemented a number of countermeasures to remedy the XSS threat. To demonstrate how XSS attacks work, we have commented out these countermeasures in Elgg in our installation, intentionally making Elgg vulnerable to XSS attacks. Without the countermeasures, users can post any arbitrary message, including JavaScript programs, to the user profiles. In this lab, students need to exploit this vulnerability to launch an XSS attack on the modified Elgg, in a way that is similar to what Samy Kamkar did to MySpace in 2005 through the notorious Samy worm. The ultimate goal of this attack is to spread an XSS worm among the users, such that whoever views an infected user profile will be infected, and whoever is infected will add you (i.e., the attacker) to his/her friend list.

Lab Tasks (Description) (Video)

• For instructors: if you prefer to customize the lab description to suit your own courses, here are our Latex source files.
• VM version: This lab has been tested on our pre-built SEEDUbuntu12.04 VM.

Recommended Time:

• Unsupervised situation (e.g. take-home project): 1 week

Files that are Needed

• A simple TCP client/server program

Suggested Reading

• SEED Book: Wenliang Du. Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach (Chapter 10).
• Here is a very nice visualization of the XSS attack made by Prof. Li Yang at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga (you need to refresh to start viewing the visualization).
• Javascrpt Tutorial
• Javascript Strings
• XMLHttpRequest
• XMLHttpRequest
• The LiveHTTPHeaders firefox extension
• The Firebug Extension

SEED Project

• Home Page