A Survey on XSS Attack Detection and Prevention in Web Applications

Abstract

With the popularity of web technology, web applications become more increasingly vulnerable and are exposed to malicious attacks. Cross Site Scripting(XSS) is a typical attack in web applications. When a vulnerability is exploited, an attacker may perform session-hijacking, cookie-stealing, malicious redirection and malware spreading. It is essential to implement detect and defend against XSS attacks. In this paper, we focus on XSS attacks and give an introduction of its injection, detection and prevention. Firstly, we introduced the attack principle of different types of XSS, and then investigated and introduced some existing XSS detection and defense methods. In addition, we compared existing XSS detection and defense methods. Finally, we discuss existing issues and estimate future research trends.