full-disclosure - Re: A technique to mitigate cookie-stealing XSS attacks

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

From: guninski at guninski.com (Georgi Guninski)
Subject: Re: A technique to mitigate cookie-stealing XSS attacks

Does "tru$tworthy computing" means "only helps reduce the potential damage from 
cookie disclosure threats. Nothing more."

Why the users at secure@...rosoft.com don't reply to real threats like:
http://lists.netsys.com/pipermail/full-disclosure/2002-September/001900.html
?

Georgi Guninski
http://www.guninski.com


Michael Howard wrote:
> During the Windows Security Push in Feb/Mar 2002, the Microsoft Internet
> Explorer team devised a method to reduce the risk of cookie-stealing
> attacks via XSS vulnerabilities. 
> 	
> In a nutshell, if Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 detects a cookie that has a
> trailing HttpOnly (case insensitive) it will return an empty string to
> the browser when accessed from script, such as by using document.cookie.
> 
> 
> Obviously, the server must add this option to all outgoing cookies.
> 
> Note, this does _not fix_ XSS bugs in server code; it only helps reduce
> the potential damage from cookie disclosure threats. Nothing more. Think
> of it as a very small insurance policy!
> 
> A full write-up outlining the HttpOnly flag, as well as source code to
> set this option, is at
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dncode/html/secure10102002.asp.
> 
> Cheers, Michael Howard
> Secure Windows Initiative
> Microsoft Corp.
> 
> Writing Secure Code 
> http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/5612.asp
> 
>