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Security a Concern As HTML5 Advances
Trailrunner7 writes "Every technology innovation has its coming out party, and Google Inc.'s recent 'dancing balls' logo experiment was widely interpreted as a high-impact debut for HTML5. But web security experts are warning that the sprawling new web standard may favor functionality over security, enabling a new generation of powerful web-based attacks. They agree that there are security enhancements in HTML5, but all expressed the same concern: that the new specification will greatly increase the 'attack surface' of HTML — providing more avenues by which malicious code can be delivered through the web. 'HTML5 has an enormous amount of functionality. The (specification) is just huge,' said Jeremiah Grossman of security firm WhiteHat. The breadth of the new specification gives him concern. 'I know that we're still finding vulnerabilities in HTML4,' Grossman said."
should also complain about a hyperText markup language document with scripts
But I'm really sick of hearing about HTML5. Maybe it's because every other day I see/hear a high level exec coming around and going crazy with statements like "HTML5 IS THE FUTURE WE HAVE TO BE ON IT. RIGHT NOW." Then I have to spend an hour explaining why it's not even currently usable for any serious enterprise application, and how the spec is not yet solidified.
The entire disarray of this, and the mobile space, makes up upset.
"Google Inc.'s recent 'dancing balls' logo experiment "
If that's a sing of what's coming in HTML 5, I don't want it. That stupid thing dragged my machine to a crawl and I had to be sure I didn't have any google tabs open.
The last thing I want is for more &*^%*() CPU-hogging crap to be added to the friggin' web.
web security experts are warning that the sprawling new web standard may favor functionality over security, enabling a new generation of powerful web-based attacks.
MS will Embrace and Extend, but not Extinguish the potential for security holes.
Apple will probably do much the same, but might do the enhanced functionality bit also.
The BSD and *nix variants will only take on the functionality, most foolishly (using MBA "forced-upgrade-income" definition).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
While I'm sure some of the new functionality will be exploited, I expect most of the abuse will be from folks who want to push ads and track users.
Google's "dancing balls" wasn't HTML5, it was divs, javascript and CSS border radius.
When HTML spec is extended that obviously increases the attack surface since popular browsers will have to support it. But in time it may replace a number of other technologies (Flash comes to mind), that -combined- may have a larger attack surface. And since displaying HTML is the core function of a browser, implementations are likely to be pretty solid compared to some add-ons.
So you'd have to look forward, and compare [average setup now] with [average setup in XX years from now]. If that comparison turns out positive, HTML5 is a move in the right direction.
How are the "concerns" over HTML5 any different than any other platform? Flash, ASP, javascript, etc have all had and continue to have vulnerabilities. The only way to stay 100% safe is to stay off the internet. Did anyone expect people who make their living by addressing both real and imagined security risks to not comment with an angle that puffed up their importance in the net ecosystem?
The article points out no specific flaws. It just says that HTML is growing, therefore the chance of a hole (the "attack surface") also is growing.
Choose your poison. The same can be said about writing an app for an operating system. "Windows/Mac OS/Linux has an enormous amount of functionality. Therefore I'm concerned that there could be a lot of vulnerabilities."
Yes.
But the growth of the browser will not simply add to the overall size of the computer. Because of a big browser, you may have a smaller operating system. This is the idea behind Chrome OS.
It is not a perfectly equal replacement. If the browser grows 15 MB, that does not mean the operating system will shrink 15 MB. But one thing that is better about putting a feature in the browser is that more eyes are on it. There will be a lot more users who try to write a program in JavaScript than against even the Windows, even the iPhone, API. HTML 5 will bring about a lot more software developers and a lot more software development.
said Jeremiah Grossman of security firm WhiteHat.
So you really need to buy their security solutions! NOW! Meanwhile, Goodyear tires said to really safe on the road (and to keep your CHILDREN! safe) you should get new tires every 5000 miles, and the Head & Shoulders folks claim washing your hair three times a day will avoid a stinky head. And the government said they taking blood and tissue samples at the airport will protect us from engineer^H^H^H^H^H^H terrorists ever more so.
The point that security researchers have been trying (for years) to get across to developers and companies alike is that ALL software/protocols/standards/whatever should be developed with security in mind from the beginning. Granted, even with secure coding practices and rigorous application security testing, there will always be some vulnerability that gets overlooked by the developer or discovered by an attacker. The thing is that most companies tend to put functionality and features far above security, which is IMHO a completely ass backward way of doing things when it comes to technology in general.
The Modern Techie will now by definition reject all new technology no matter what advancements are in it. While adopting any new technology will have tradeoffs the modern will hold on to whatever tradeoff negative effect and call it a horrible plan. Any new tech is now a threat to their way of life and no longer a new interesting field to study...
I think us techs have gotten too old.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Unfortunately, most people want feature over security. Many people don't even think about security for themselves and only complains when it bites them in the ass. "What do you mean I shouldn't write my PIN on my debit card? You should just have made your system more secure!"
Let me start out by reminding everyone that when Netscape came up with Cookies, everyone thought they were fine. Now, thanks to 1 pixel images and other tracking methods, cookies are the key to online companies aggregating bits of "anonymous" data into an identifiable profile of a person. Does Google know only as much about you as you would like? In fact, they know far more about you than you would expect, even if you don't use GMail.
The single biggest shot across the bow to privacy in HTML5 is the ping attribute. It may seem innocuous at first glance, but according to MozillaZine, it sends an HTTP POST request to each url. Why not GET instead?
This will allow Google, Alexa, FaceBook, or any "partner" to track users, if a site implements ping, easier than ever before. Some say trackers will migrate away from redirect URLs, but I say they will do both, if only to sop up every last piece of data they can.
I can see ping being used as a stealth DDOS attack, if enough malicious links can be distributed. Some content provider web API gets hacked, thousands of sites load up links (via AJAX) that ping slashdot.org, and Slashdot goes down. Will ping implementations be smart enough to reduce the list of URLs down to unique values? How many times does ping="slashdot.org slashdot.org/foo slashdot.org/comments.pl slashdot.org/article.pl" actually hit the poor, unsuspecting server? There's no apparent limit to how many URLs can be stuffed into a single ping, either.
I'm sure the black hats will think of other ways to exploit this. I agree that tools are neither evil nor good, but this is ripe for unintended consequences.
Just because a spec isn't finalized doesn't mean some of the feature haven't been implemented. You can find what's been implemented and just maybe, impress your boss.
The web page you linked is an example of what can go wrong with HTML5 in the wrong hands: it ends up just like Flash in the wrong hands has ended up for years. Not only does it use mystery meat navigation, but it also takes literally four seconds from when I move the pointer to when another wedge of the graph lights up. I'm using the latest release version of Firefox (3.6.10) on Windows XP.
It doesn't even contain any code, being a markup language? It's not even Turing complete.
[italic attribute="question"]Is this invented markup language of mine also vulnerable?[/italic]
*shrug*
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Browsers, IM tools, Skype, and other such tools should ALWAYS run under very restrictive permission levels. I don't need my browser writing anywhere on my computer except for maybe one folder (usually). I don't need it changing the registry. I don't need it to be able to unsandboxed execute code.
So keep it isolated using permissions. That is the the last line of defense against malicious sites.
That would solve a great number of problems.
I'm not an expert of any kind, but my general concern with the web has been growing as static documents have become applications. It's the same reason I don't like the idea of javascript in PDFs. I like the idea of a static document that doesn't do anything, but is merely viewable. Yes, yes, I know that it's possible for malformed documents to trigger exploits in the document viewer, but that seems like it should be more rare and easy to protect against.
At you upgrade HTML to make web applications more and more powerful, it seems likely to me (from a non-expert standpoint) that you're increasing the variety of security concerns we need to worry about. There's a part of me that wishes we had two different things: a web browser that allowed for safe passive viewing of relatively static content, and an application that supported an application framework similar to current web applications.
Ok, I'm ready for people to yell at me for being stupid now.