Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Sign up for free
Menu
Search
Features
All features
Private URLs
Password Protection
Custom URLS
Scheduled publishing
Remove Branding
Restrict embedding
Deck Collections
Notes
Features
All features
Private URLs
Password Protection
Custom URLS
Scheduled publishing
Remove Branding
Restrict embedding
Deck Collections
Notes
Explore
Featured decks
Featured speakers
Programming
Technology
Storyboards
Explore
Featured decks
Featured speakers
Programming
Technology
Storyboards
Pricing
Search
Sign in
Sign up for free
Hacking Front-End Apps
Search
Alex Sexton
February 12, 2014
Technology
2.5k
3
Share
Embed
Copy iframe code
Copy JS code
Copy link
Start on current slide
Hacking Front-End Apps
My talk on client side web security as given at the jQuery Conference 2014 in San Diego
Alex Sexton
February 12, 2014
More Decks by Alex Sexton
See All by Alex Sexton
Your Very Own Component Library
slexaxton
5
760
Front-End Ops - jQuery Conf Chicago 2014
slexaxton
1
1k
Practicing Safe Script
slexaxton
18
3k
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
The Agent Builder Loop from Daily Work to OSS
minorun365
PRO
3
140
TinyGo 開発サイクルを高速化する:Go で作るエミュレータ入門
zozotech
PRO
1
650
株式会社シーエーシー エンジニア向け会社紹介資料
cac
0
57k
2026-09-09 【sigma_ucj#1】Sigma を IaC 管理したい! / IaC for Sigma
civitaspo
0
120
DEFCON34-Write-up_HYCu-MYCu
daikiokazaki
0
150
enechainの内製セルフサービスプラットフォーム
hiyosi
0
160
Multica × 長期記憶:40個のミニプロジェクト管理
eiei114
1
250
なぜSRE・セキュリティは評価されないのか?守りの組織を事業成長エンジンに変えた実践
cscengineer
PRO
3
2.5k
コーディングエージェントでM5Stack系の開発を少し試した時の話 / M5 Japan Tour 2026 Autumn 東京
you
PRO
0
180
Sigmaで作る業務アプリ
kazushiro_honma
0
120
クロスボーダーM&AのValue Upを支えるプロダクト開発。日米チームのハブになったプロダクトエンジニアの実践 / Product Engineering Conference 2026
genda
0
120
AIネイティブプロダクトで顧客価値を最大化するプロダクトエンジニアとFDEの協働
righttouch
PRO
0
240
Featured
See All Featured
How to Build an AI Search Optimization Roadmap - Criteria and Steps to Take #SEOIRL
aleyda
1
2.2k
How STYLIGHT went responsive
nonsquared
100
6.3k
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
inesmontani
PRO
3
3.7k
Noah Learner - AI + Me: how we built a GSC Bulk Export data pipeline
techseoconnect
PRO
0
430
Design and Strategy: How to Deal with People Who Don’t "Get" Design
morganepeng
133
19k
The Curious Case for Waylosing
cassininazir
1
500
DevOps and Value Stream Thinking: Enabling flow, efficiency and business value
helenjbeal
1
380
We Are The Robots
honzajavorek
0
360
Git: the NoSQL Database
bkeepers
PRO
432
67k
Primal Persuasion: How to Engage the Brain for Learning That Lasts
tmiket
0
450
brightonSEO & MeasureFest 2025 - Christian Goodrich - Winning strategies for Black Friday CRO & PPC
cargoodrich
3
830
A Modern Web Designer's Workflow
chriscoyier
699
190k
Transcript
Hacking Front-End Apps Alex Sexton
I work at .
which is in . California
but…
I live in . Texas
The web has a lot in common with Texas.
“The wild west.”
In 1985, Texas had a problem.
None
Littering
Some Texans defended their “God-given right to litter.”
ಠ_ಠ
There were fines for littering.
photo by Curtis Gregory Perry
But no one seemed to care.
The state tried some slogans.
None
But these slogans apparently did not resonate with the core
offenders
Males 18-24 “Bubbas in Pickup Trucks”
In 1985 Texas tried a new campaign:
None
The campaign reduced litter on Texas highways ! 72% !
from 1986 to 1990.
My point is…
“Hey everyone, you should make your websites more secure because
it’s important.” ! Probably isn’t going to do the trick.
DON’T! MESS! WITH! XSS Also probably won’t work.
Web developers, not security researchers, are the core audience.
Web security is hard.
“All you have to do is never make a single
mistake.” - I Think Mike West
“I discount the probability of perfection.” - Alex Russell
Content Injection
None
None
None
Everyone has a friend that always seems to pick “<script>alert(‘hacked!’);</script>”
as their username.
My User Agent
My Friend, Mike Taylor’s User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac
OS X 10.9; rv:25.0) <script>alert(‘lol’);</script> Gecko/20100101 Firefox/25.0
My Friend, Mike Taylor’s User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac
OS X 10.9; rv:25.0) <script>alert(‘lol’);</script> Gecko/20100101 Firefox/25.0
ಠ_ಠ
Samy
None
None
None
ಠ_ಠ
So let’s just detect malicious scripts!
None
alert(1)
The Billy Hoffman Whitespace Attack <script> ! </script>
The Billy Hoffman Whitespace Attack <script> ! </script> Malicious
Code
The Billy Hoffman Whitespace Attack <script> ! </script> tab
tab tab space space
The Billy Hoffman Whitespace Attack <script> ! </script> 1
1 1 0 0
You cannot detect malicious code.
output.replace(/<script>/, ‘’);
CSS Hacks
Old School
None
Link Visited Link getComputedStyle( getComputedStyle( ) ) === \o\|o|/o/ Pretty
much People Celebrating (or screaming on fire)
Timing Attacks
Security by Inaccuracy
requestAnimationFrame + :visited = ಠ_ಠ
requestAnimationFrame + :visited = ಠ_ಠ
requestAnimationFrame + :visited = ಠ_ಠ
Link Visited Link
Link Visited Link <16ms >60ms Time to render
JSON-P
MORE LIKE JSON-Pretty-Insecure
“I’d really like it if someone could run arbitrary dynamic
scripts on my page” - JSONP Users
You wouldn’t do this.
So don’t do this.
A Leak In The Response
YouProbablyShouldUseCORS.tumblr.com
enable-cors.org
Try to say CROSS SITE! REQUEST FORGERY 5 times fast.
Set-Cookie ‘csrf=0003’
Set-Cookie ‘csrf=0003’
None
None
None
It gets worse.
Contextis White Paper
Cross-Domain Data Snooping via SVG Filters and OCR
None
ಠ_ಠ
We need a new approach.
Content Security Policy
None
Disallow Inline JS, CSS By Default!
Disallow eval By Default!
Disallow Cross Domain JS, CSS, IMG, Fonts
Report Violations!
None
A White List That’s the key!
Good Security Goes Beyond Content Injection
<iframe sandbox>
HTTPS Everywhere
HTTPS Everywhere
HTTPS Only
301 Redirect http
https HSTS
Frame Busting
Disallow as an iFrame X-Frame-Options
It’s “security by default.” At least much closer…
You can rely a little less on being perfect.
it only matters if everyone buys in. But
We need our own slogan.
We need developers to take pride in making secure applications.
Don’t Mess With The Web
ಠ_ಠ
Let’s do something about it together.
Thanks! @SlexAxton Special Thanks To: Mike West * 1000 Adam
Baldwin Contextis MDN