Browser Extension Blocking for Sensitive Data Exfiltration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Data exfiltration poses a significant threat to sensitive information, leading to substantial financial losses and security breaches, as existing technologies fail to effectively prevent unauthorized data theft through user interactions in web browsers.
Innovation Solution
A cybersecurity data loss prevention service employs a browser extension that synchronously blocks potentially malicious user inputs and generates duplicates for asynchronous evaluation, using an endpoint cybersecurity agent to determine the legitimacy of these interactions, thereby preventing and allowing data exfiltration events.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the browser extension blocks all exfiltration events synchronously, then data security is improved, but legitimate user operations are hindered
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a cybersecurity agent as an intermediary between the browser extension and the exfiltration events. The extension captures events and forwards them to the agent for evaluation, which then decides whether to block or allow each event. This mediator architecture enables fine-grained control, blocking only malicious events while permitting legitimate operations to proceed, thus maintaining both data security and user operation fluency.
2Measurement precision
If the cybersecurity agent evaluates each exfiltration event in real-time, then detection accuracy is improved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The browser extension creates a copy of each exfiltration event and sends it to the cybersecurity agent for evaluation, while the original event can proceed independently. This copying mechanism allows parallel processing where the agent evaluates the event copy without blocking the original event flow, thereby maintaining detection accuracy while minimizing processing delays.
3Reliability
If all user inputs are monitored and blocked, then data theft prevention is improved, but system performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements partial monitoring by evaluating each exfiltration event individually and applying blocking only when the cybersecurity agent determines the event is malicious. This partial action approach avoids the performance overhead of universally blocking all events, while still providing comprehensive protection against data theft by selectively intervening only when necessary.
Data Source
AI summary
A cybersecurity data loss prevention service stops users from stealing, or exfiltrating, sensitive data. An endpoint cybersecurity agent coordinates the installation of a browser extension. The browser extension adds content scripts to a web browser that monitor for exfiltration events. The exfiltration events represent a user's browser inputs (such as cut-n-paste or drag-n-drop) that can be used to exfiltrate usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, company secrets, and any other sensitive data. When the browser extension detects any exfiltration event, the browser extension intercepts and synchronously blocks the exfiltration event from the web browser. Moreover, the browser extension sends a duplicate copy of the exfiltration event to the cybersecurity agent for evaluation. If the cybersecurity agent determines that the user's browser inputs should have been allowed, then the browser extension is instructed to trigger the duplicate copy. The web browser thus asynchronously processes the user's browser inputs, albeit slightly delayed.