Cross Channel Scripting (XCS) Attacks in Web Applications: Detection and Mitigation Approaches

Abstract

XCS (Cross Channel Scripting) is a dangerous web application vulnerability, in which injection of the malicious code and attack execution is performed through network protocols. This vulnerability is the variant and sophistication concept of XSS (Cross-Site Scripting). We disclose a range of XCS attacks on embedded servers, which make use of electronic devices such as photo frames, cameras, wireless routers and wireless access points. All these devices have web interfaces, which permits an admin to perform various tasks on the device that is connecting from a web browser to the web server. An attack execution is carried by inserting malevolent code in the device, which is executed in the context of a legitimate user when he/she opens the page containing injected malicious code. This malevolent code can be inserted in the device through non web channels like SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or NFS (Network File System). Unfortunately, the injected malicious code can fully compromise the security of devices, which are embedded in web servers. In this paper, a comprehensive analysis of the XCS exploitation and mitigation techniques have been presented.