CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptwebsocketfaye
Samuel
Samuel

Reputation: 2442

Secure JavaScript Running on 3rd Party Sites

We have a "widget" that runs on 3rd party websites, that is, anyone who signs up with our service and embeds the JavaScript.

At the moment we use JSONP for all communication. We can securely sign people in and create accounts via the use of an iFrame and some magic with detecting load events on it. (Essentially, we wait until the iFrames source is pointing back to the clients domain before reading a success value out of the title of it).

Because we're running on JSONP, we can use the browsers HTTP cookies to detect if the user is logged in.

However, we're in the process of transitioning our system to run realtime and over web sockets. We will still have the same method for authentication but we won't necessarily be making other calls using JSONP. Instead those calls will occur over websockets (using the library Faye)

How can I secure this? The potential security holes is if someone copies the JavaScript off an existing site, alters it, then gets people to visit their site instead. I think this defeats my original idea of sending back a secure token on login as the malicious JavaScript would be able to read it then use it perform authenticated actions.

Am I better off keeping my secure actions running over regular JSONP and my updates over WebSockets?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 455

Answers (2)

oberstet
oberstet

Reputation: 22051

Whether you are sent cookies during opening WebSocket handshake by browser (and if so, what cookies) is not specified by the WS spec. It's left up to browser vendors.

A WS connection can be opened to any site, not only the site originally serving the JS doing the connection. However, browsers MUST set the "Origin" HTTP header in the WS opening handshake to the one originally serving the JS. The server is then free to accept or deny the connection.

You could i.e. generate a random string in JS, store that client side, and let that plus the client IP take part in computing an auth token for WS ..

Upvotes: 0

tjdett
tjdett

Reputation: 1723

Websocket connections receive cookies only during the opening handshake. The only site that can access your websocket connection is the one that opened it, so if you're opening your connection after authentication then I presume your security will be comparable to your current JSONP implementation.

That is not to say that your JSONP implementation is secure. I don't know that it isn't, but are you checking the referrers for your JSONP requests to ensure they're really coming from the same 3rd-party site that logged in? If not, you already have a security issue from other sites embedding your javascript.

In any case, the 3rd-party having an XSS vulnerability would also be a very big problem, but presumably you know that already.

Upvotes: 4

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