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Message-ID: <451D64B9.5070306@mozilla.org>
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:23:53 -0700
From: Chris Hofmann <chofmann@...illa.org>
To: Billy Hoffman <Billy.Hoffman@...dynamics.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk, websecurity@...appsec.org
Subject: Re: [WEB SECURITY] Stealing Search Engine Queries
with JavaScript
I've filed https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=354861 for
tracking the investigation in Firefox.
Chris Hofmann
Billy Hoffman wrote:
> SPI Labs has discovered a practical method of using JavaScript to
> detect the search queries a user has entered into arbitrary search
> engines. All the code needed to steal a user's search queries is
> written in JavaScript and uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This code
> could be embedded into any website either by the website owner or by a
> malicious third party through a Cross-site Scripting (XSS) attack.
> There it would harvest information about every visitor to that site.
>
>
>
> Possible uses:
>
> -HMO's website could check if a visitor has been searching other sites
> about cancer, cancer treatments, or drug rehab centers.
>
> -Advertising networks could gather information about which topics
> someone is interested based on their search history and use that to
> echance their customer databases.
>
> -Government websites could see if a visitor has been searching for
> bomb-making instructions.
>
>
>
> SPI has published a whitepaper about this technique and has also
> release proof of concept code that will steal search engine queries.
> Works solid in Firefox, and IE support is a little shaky on multi word
> queries.
>
>
>
> Whitepaper:
> http://www.spidynamics.com/assets/documents/JS_SearchQueryTheft.pdf
>
> Proof of Concept: http://www.spidynamics.com/spilabs/js-search/index.html
>
>
>
> Have fun,
>
> Billy Hoffman
>
> --
>
> Lead R&D Engineer
>
> SPI Dynamics -- http://www.spidynamics.com <http://www.spidynamics.com/>
>
> Phone: 678-781-4800
>
> Direct: 678-781-4845
>
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