# XS-Search/XS-Leaks
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## **Basic Information**
XS-Search is a technique oriented to **exfiltrate cross-origin information** abusing **side channel attacks**.
There are different elements in this kind of attack:
* **Vulnerable Web**: Is the web from where we want to exfiltrate some info
* **Attacker's Web**: Is the web the attacker creates containing the exploit and that the victim access
* **Inclusion Method**: Is the method used to load the Vulnerable Web from the Attacker's web (like window.open, iframe, fetch, HTML tag with href...)
* **Leak Technique**: After accessing the vulnerable web, a technique will be used to differentiate between the potential status of the web with the information obtained from the inclusion method used.
* **States**: The 2 possible states the vulnerable web can have depending on the victim that we want to differentiate.
* **Detectable Differences**: This is the information the attacker has to try to decide the status of the vulenrable web
### Detectable Diferences
In order to distinguish between the 2 states of the vulnerable page several things could be looked at:
* **Status Code**. An attacker can distinguish **different HTTP response status codes** cross-origin (e.g., server errors, client errors, or authentication errors).
* **API Usage**. This detectable difference allows an attacker to detect **Web APIsâ usage** across pages, allowing an attacker to infer whether a cross-origin page is using a specific JavaScript Web API.
* **Redirects**. It is possible to detect if a web application has **navigated the user to a different page**. This is not limited to HTTP redirects but also includes redirects triggered by JavaScript or HTML.
* **Page Content**. These detectable **differences appear in the HTTP response body** itself or in sub-resources included by the page. For example, this could be the **number of included frames** (cf. XS-Leak on Gitlab) or size differences of images.
* **HTTP Header**. An attacker can detect the presence of a **specific HTTP response header** and may be able to gather its value. This includes headers such as X-Frame-Options, Content-Disposition, and Cross-Origin-Resource-Policy.
* **Timing**: An attacker can detect that a consistent time difference exists between 2 states.
### Inclusion Methods
* **HTML Elements**. HTML offers a variety of elements that enable **cross-origin resource inclusion**. Elements like stylesheets, images, or scripts, force the victimâs browser to request a specified non-HTML resource. A list that enumerates possible HTML elements for this purpose is available online ([https://github.com/cure53/HTTPLeaks](https://github.com/cure53/HTTPLeaks)).
* **Frames**. Elements such as **iframe**, **object**, and **embed** may embed further HTML resources directly into the attacker page. If the page does **not use framing protection**, JavaScript code can access the framed resourceâs window object via the contentWindow property.
* **Pop-ups**. The **`window.open`** method loads a resource in a new browser tab or window. The method returns a **window handle** that JavaScript code can use to access methods and properties, which comply with the SOP. These so-called pop-ups are often used in single sign-on. Modern browsers only allow pop-ups if they are triggered by certain user interactions. For XS-Leak attacks, this method is especially helpful because it **bypasses framing and cookie restrictions for a target resource**. Newer browser versions recently added means to isolate window handles.
* **JavaScript Requests**. JavaScript allows sending requests to target resources directly. There are two different ways for this purpose: **XMLHttpRequests** and its successor **Fetch** **API**. In contrast to previous inclusion methods, an attacker has fine-grained control over the issued request, for example, whether an HTTP redirect must be automatically followed.
### Leak Techniques
* **Event Handler**. Event handler can be seen as the classical leak technique for XS-Leaks. They are a well-known source of various pieces of information. For example, the trigger of **onload** indicates a **successful** resource loading in contrast to the onerror event.
* **Error Messages**. Beyond event handlers, error messages can occur as **JavaScript exceptions** and **special error pages**. Error messages can be thrown in different steps, for example, directly by the leak technique. The leak technique can either use additional **information** directly **contained** in the **error message**, or distinguish between the **appearance and absence of an error message**.
* **Global Limits**. Every computer has its physical limits, so does a browser. For example, the amount of available memory limits a browserâs running tabs. The same holds for other browser limits that are enforced for the entire browser. If an attacker can determine **when the limit is reached this can be used as a leak technique**.
* **Global State**. Browsers have **global states that all pages can interact with**. If this interaction is detectable from an attackerâs website, it can be used as a leak technique. For example, the **History** interface allows manipulation of the pages visited in a tab or frame. This creates a global state because the **number of entries** allows an attacker to draw conclusions about cross-origin pages.
* **Performance API**. The Performance API is used to access the **performance information of the current page**. Their entries include detailed network timing data for the document and every resource loaded by the page. This allows an attacker to draw **conclusions about requested resources**. For example, we identified cases where browsers will not create performance entries for some requests.
* **Readable Attributes**. HTML has several **attributes that are readable cross-origin**. This read access can be used as a leak technique. For example, JavaScript code can read the number of frames included in a webpage cross-origin with the window.frame.length property.
#### **Timing Based techniques**
Some of the following techniques are going to use timing to as part of the process to detect differences in the possible states of the web pages. There are different ways to measure time in a web browser.
**Clocks**: The [performance.now()](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance/now) API allows developers to get high-resolution timing measurements.\
There are a considerable number of APIs attackers can abuse to create implicit clocks: [Broadcast Channel API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Broadcast\_Channel\_API), [Message Channel API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MessageChannel), [requestAnimationFrame](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/window/requestAnimationFrame), [setTimeout](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowOrWorkerGlobalScope/setTimeout), CSS animations, and others\*\*.\*\*\
For more info: [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/clocks](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/clocks/).
## XSinator
XSinator is an automatic tool to **check browsers against several know XS-Leaks** explained in its paper: [https://xsinator.com/paper.pdf](https://xsinator.com/paper.pdf)\
You can access the tool in [https://xsinator.com/](https://xsinator.com/)
{% hint style="warning" %}
**Excluded XS-Leaks**: We had to exclude XS-Leaks that rely on **service workers** as they would interfere with other leaks in XSinator. Furthermore, we chose to **exclude XS-Leaks that rely on misconfiguration and bugs in a specific web application**. For example, CrossOrigin Resource Sharing (CORS) misconfigurations, postMessage leakage or Cross-Site Scripting. Additionally, we excluded timebased XS-Leaks since they often suffer from being slow, noisy and inaccurate.
{% endhint %}
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## Event Handler Techniques
### Onload/Onerror
* **Inclusion Methods**: Frames, HTML Elements
* **Detectable Difference**: Status Code
* **More info**: [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/presentation/staicu](https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/presentation/staicu), [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/error-events/](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/error-events/)
* **Summary**: if trying to load a resource onerror/onload events are triggered with the resource is loaded successfully/unsuccessfully it's possible to figure out the status code.
* **Code example**: [https://xsinator.com/testing.html#Event%20Handler%20Leak%20(Script)](https://xsinator.com/testing.html#Event%20Handler%20Leak%20\(Script\))
The code example try lo l**oad scripts objects from JS**, but **other tags** such as objects, stylesheets, images, audios could be also used. Moreover, it's also possible to inject the **tag directly** and declare the `onload` and `onerror` events inside the tag (instead of injecting it from JS).
There is also a script-less version of this attack:
```html
```
In this case if `example.com/404` is not found `attacker.com/?error` will be loaded.
### Onload Timing
* **Inclusion Methods**: HTML Elements
* **Detectable Difference**: Timing (generally due to Page Content, Status Code)
* **More info**: [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#onload-events](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#onload-events)
* **Summary:** The [performance.now()](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/clocks/#performancenow) API can be used to measure how much time it takes to perform a request. Other clocks could be used.
* **Code Example**: [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#onload-events](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#onload-events)
### unload/beforeunload Timing
* **Inclusion Methods**: Frames
* **Detectable Difference**: Timing (generally due to Page Content, Status Code)
* **More info**: [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#unload-events](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#unload-events)
* **Summary:** The [SharedArrayBuffer clock](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/clocks/#sharedarraybuffer-and-web-workers) can be used to measure how much time it takes to perform a request. Other clocks could be used.
* **Code Example**: [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#unload-events](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#unload-events)
The [`unload`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/unload\_event) and [`beforeunload`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/beforeunload\_event) events can be used to measure the time it takes to fetch a resource. This works because **`beforeunload`** is triggered when the browser **requests a new navigation** request, while **`unload`** is triggered when that **navigation actually occurs**. Because of this behaviour, it is possible to calculate the time difference between these two events and measure the **time it took the browser to complete fetching the resource**.
### Sandboxed Frame Timing + onload
* **Inclusion Methods**: Frames
* **Detectable Difference**: Timing (generally due to Page Content, Status Code)
* **More info**: [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#sandboxed-frame-timing-attacks](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#sandboxed-frame-timing-attacks)
* **Summary:** The [performance.now()](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/clocks/#performancenow) API can be used to measure how much time it takes to perform a request. Other clocks could be used.
* **Code Example**: [https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#sandboxed-frame-timing-attacks](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/attacks/timing-attacks/network-timing/#sandboxed-frame-timing-attacks)
If a page doesnât have any [Framing Protections](https://xsleaks.dev/docs/defenses/opt-in/xfo/) implemented, an attacker can time how long it takes for the page and all subresources to load over the network. By default, the `onload` handler for an iframe is invoked after all the resources have been loaded and all JavaScript has finished executing. But, an attacker can eliminate the noise of script execution by including the [`sandbox`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/iframe) attribute in the `