Scanning Unexposed Web App Vulnerabilities via DOM Event Extraction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern web applications built with JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue do not expose actionable events to application scanners, making it difficult for existing security tools to detect security vulnerabilities due to runtime generation of DOM elements and built-in security features.
Innovation Solution
A method involving an application security server that performs a brute force operation to identify unexposed actionable events in the Document Object Model (DOM) of web applications, generating scanning packages specific to each framework to scan for security vulnerabilities based on captured network requests.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If modern web application frameworks (React, Angular, Vue) are used to build web applications with runtime-generated DOM elements and built-in security features, then application security is improved, but security vulnerability detection by application scanners deteriorates because actionable events are not exposed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary extraction engine that acts as a bridge between the web application framework and the vulnerability scanner. This extraction engine intercepts and extracts actionable events from runtime-generated DOM elements that would otherwise be hidden from traditional scanners, enabling the scanner to detect security vulnerabilities while maintaining the security features of modern frameworks
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary extraction of actionable events from DOM elements before the vulnerability scanning process begins. By pre-extracting and exposing these events through the intermediary engine, the system prepares the web application data in advance, allowing the vulnerability scanner to access previously hidden events without modifying the original framework's security mechanisms
2Reliability
If traditional application scanners crawl web applications to discover security vulnerabilities, then security testing coverage is improved, but performance deteriorates due to the inability to access unexposed actionable events requiring extensive brute force operations
Solution Approach 1:
The extraction engine selectively extracts only the actionable events from DOM elements that are relevant for vulnerability scanning, separating these critical events from the rest of the application data. This extraction process provides the vulnerability scanner with focused, pre-processed event data, eliminating the need for extensive brute force operations and improving scanning performance while maintaining comprehensive coverage
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and processes for scanning unexposed web applications for security vulnerabilities. A web application executing on a client computing device is accessed and a determination is made that elements in a document object model (DOM) associated with the web application are completely loaded. A brute force operation is performed to identify unexposed actionable events associated with the elements in the DOM. The unexposed actionable events identified as part of performing the brute force operation are received from the client computing device, and the web application is scanned for security vulnerabilities based on the unexposed actionable events.