Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2015
Publication Source
IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
Abstract
Mixed Flash and JavaScript content has become increasingly prevalent; its purveyance of dynamic features unique to each platform has popularized it for myriad Web development projects. Although Flash and JavaScript security has been examined extensively, the security of untrusted content that combines both has received considerably less attention. This article considers this fusion in detail, outlining several practical scenarios that threaten the security of Web applications. The severity of these attacks warrants the development of new techniques that address the security of Flash-JavaScript content considered as a whole, in contrast to prior solutions that have examined Flash or JavaScript security individually. Toward this end, the article presents FlashJaX, a cross-platform solution that enforces fine-grained, history-based policies that span both Flash and JavaScript. Using in-lined reference monitoring, FlashJaX safely embeds untrusted JavaScript and Flash content in Web pages without modifying browser clients or using special plug-ins. The architecture of FlashJaX, its design and implementation, and a detailed security analysis are exposited. Experiments with advertisements from popular ad networks demonstrate that FlashJaX is transparent to policy-compliant advertisement content, yet blocks many common attack vectors that exploit the fusion of these Web platforms.
Inclusive pages
443–457
ISBN/ISSN
1545-5971
Document Version
Postprint
Copyright
Copyright © 2015, IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Volume
12
Peer Reviewed
yes
Issue
4
eCommons Citation
Phung, Phu Huu; Monshizadeh, Maliheh; Sridhar, Meera; Hamlen, Kevin W.; and Venkatakrishnan, V. N., "Between Worlds: Securing Mixed JavaScript/ActionScript Multi-Party Web Content" (2015). Computer Science Faculty Publications. 135.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cps_fac_pub/135
Comments
The document available for download is the authors' accepted manuscript, provided in compliance with the publisher's policy on self-archiving. To read the version of record, use the DOI provided.
Permission documentation on file.