Subdomain Segregation for Cross-Site Scripting Mitigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current web browser security models are vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks, where malicious scripts can execute on client machines, allowing hackers to steal sensitive information by bypassing security restrictions, especially when dealing with cookie-based authentication across the same domain.
Innovation Solution
Resources are segregated into different domains or subdomains corresponding to user groups with identical access privileges, using a unique identifier or hashed token in URLs to restrict script execution to authorized members of the sharing set, preventing cross-site scripting attacks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If cross-domain access rules are used to allow scripts to interact with resources on the same domain, then ease of operation is improved, but security is worsened due to cross-site scripting attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the domain into multiple subdomains, each corresponding to a specific sharing set of users. This segmentation allows scripts to execute freely within each subdomain while preventing cross-site scripting attacks between different subdomains, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and security.
2Productivity
If cookie-based authentication is used across the same domain, then productivity is improved through automatic authentication, but security is worsened due to cookie theft via cross-site scripting
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the domain into multiple subdomains, each with its own isolated cookie namespace. This allows automatic authentication to function within each subdomain while preventing cookie theft across subdomains through cross-site scripting attacks, thus resolving the contradiction between productivity and security.
3Ease of operation
If domain-wide script execution is allowed, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability is worsened due to unauthorized script execution
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the domain into multiple subdomains, each corresponding to a specific sharing set. This allows scripts to execute freely within each subdomain (maintaining ease of operation) while ensuring that only authorized users within the same sharing set can execute scripts (maintaining reliability through access control).
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different access control policies to different subdomains based on their corresponding sharing sets. Each subdomain has its own security context, allowing local quality control where scripts can execute freely within their designated subdomain but are restricted from accessing other subdomains, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
An arrangement for reducing the occurrence of harmful cross-site scripting is provided by segregating on-line content or other resources so that they are accessible at different domains or subdomains, each of which corresponds to a set of users, called a “sharing set,” where each user in the set has identical access privileges to certain resources. The sharing set is provided with an identifier (which may or may not be unique), so that the identifier may be used as the name of the domain or subdomain for which any member of the sharing set is authorized to access the resources located there. In this way, script that is embedded with the content can only be executed among members of the sharing set. Users who are not members of the sharing set are unable to invoke cross site-scripting attacks that would allow them to gain access to data from sharing set members.