Types of XSS
This attack is mainly of 2 types
Non-Persistent
This type of attack is carried out by injecting some client side code in a Vulnerable URL. Now further the Attacker can spread this URL and send it to his/her victims by means of some social engineering etc , on clicking these links the Victims Unknowingly executes the injected code , Which in turn can result in Cookie stealing , Privacy Disclosure etc.
Persistent
This type of Attack is more dangerous and it occurs when the data provided by the attacker is stored by the server, which is viewed as a normal page to the normal users.
Now Further the Attacker can simply inject some malicious Client Side Code which in turn can result in Defacement of the Website, Cookie Stealing, and Privacy Disclosure etc.
Demo
Now that we know something about what are these type of vulnerabilities and how they occur let’s actually take a look at how these vulnerabilities occur How to test it!
Xss.php
Code: php
<html> <head> <title>Vulnerable to XSS</title> </head> </html> <body> <h1>Welcome to XSS Demo Page</h1> <p>The Data Entered is As Follows :- </p> <?php /** * @author lionaneesh * @copyright 2011 */ if(isset($_GET['data'])) { $data = $_GET['data']; } else { $data = "No Data Entered !"; } echo "<i>$data</i>"; ?> </body>
Now Just Go to :-
Site.com/path/xss.php?data=<script>alert(“XSS”);</script>
And See what happens!
Wow! An Alert box saying XSS will appear proving that your injected code actually executed! Now this is just an example of how these vulnerabilities can occur in web-applications and how you can test them!
How to Fix Them
If you’re one of the people whose site is vulnerable to this type of attack I recommend fixing it as soon as possible, For the scope of this tutorial I’ll be only covering on how these vulnerabilities can be fixed in PHP , If you are using some other language , I recommend you to check your Language Reference or Contact Me .
PHP Provides a function called htmlspecialchars() which converts the chars into their HTML entities. Now we’ll just use this in the above code and check what happens.
Xss.php (line number 33)
Code: php
Site.com/path/xss.php?data=<script>alert(“XSS”);</script>
And See what happens!
Voila! U can notice the change now!
That’s all for this tutorial stay tuned for more
Please try to comment if i have done well or if you have finished learning from the blog
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