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Bug 13585 - [html5] Sandbox disables clickjacking protection
Summary: [html5] Sandbox disables clickjacking protection
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LC1 HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: Other All
: P3 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ian 'Hixie' Hickson
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL: http://www.w3.org/mid/1312266482.1309...
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2011-08-03 05:53 UTC by HTML WG bugbot
Modified: 2011-10-20 09:06 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments

Description HTML WG bugbot 2011-08-03 05:53:00 UTC
public-html-comments posting from: Philippe De Ryck <philippe.deryck@cs.kuleuven.be>
http://www.w3.org/mid/1312266482.13091.1.camel@papyrus

The following comment contains detailed information about an issue that
was discovered during a recent security analysis of 13 next generation
web standards, organized by ENISA (European Network and Information
Security Agency), and performed by the DistriNet Research Group (K.U.
Leuven, Belgium).

The complete report is available at http://www.enisa.europa.eu/html5
(*), and contains information about the process, the discovered
vulnerabilities and recommendations towards improving overall security
in the studied specifications.

 Summary 
---------
Using a sandbox prevents navigation of the top-level browsing context
(unless specifically allowed), which disables common clickjacking
protection mechanisms. This is problematic if an attacker uses such a
sandbox to frame the victim page.

Based on: HTML5, 11 July 2011
Relevant Sections: 4.8.2. The iframe element

 Issue
-------
In order to perform a clickjacking attack, an attacker can frame the
victim page using a sandbox iframe. The security features of the sandbox
prevent the victim page from navigating the top-level browsing context
to its own URL, as commonly done in clickjacking protection mechanisms.
This effectively disables the victim's page clickjacking protection.

 Recommended Solution
----------------------

Add the following warning to section 4.8.2 (the iframe element) of the
specification: Unwanted sandboxing of legitimate content can disable
javascript-based clickjacking protection mechanisms. To prevent such
attacks, legitimate content should provde adequate clickjacking
protection [1].


[1] Busting frame busting: a study of clickjacking vulnerabilities at
popular sites. Gustav Rydstedt, Elie Bursztein, Dan Boneh, and Collin
Jackson in IEEE Oakland Web 2.0 Security and Privacy (W2SP 2010) 



(*) HTML version of the report is available as well:
https://distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be/projects/HTML5-security/

-- 
Philippe De Ryck
K.U.Leuven, Dept. of Computer Science


Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
Comment 1 Michael[tm] Smith 2011-08-04 05:13:54 UTC
mass-move component to LC1
Comment 2 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2011-08-14 06:15:26 UTC
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Accepted
Change Description: no new spec change
Rationale: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-comments/2011Aug/0011.html