After a user logs in, websites and online apps often transmit a cookie to identify him or her. The user’s browser must transmit the cookie to the web application as identification for each activity the user takes on the site. If an attacker is successful in injecting a Cross-site Scripting (XSS) payload into the web application, the malicious script may take the user’s cookie and transfer it to the attacker. The cookie can then be used by the attacker to impersonate the user in the online application. Persistent, or stored, XSS is the most severe type of XSS. This is due to the attacker’s XSS payload being kept and provided to each visitor to the website or web application without user interaction. An attacker can get complete control of a user’s web application session by stealing a session cookie.
Although the instances described above are not as serious as attackers getting access to a corporate database, consumers might easily lose trust in the application’s security. Such instances might result in legal problems, liabilities, and a loss of revenue for the owner of the susceptible website.
Cookie Protection Against XSS Vulnerabilities
There isn’t much that can be done in the case of a targeted or non-persistent attack in which the user has provided his or her credentials to the attacker. Web application scans, on the other hand, utilize automated technologies to determine whether they are vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting.
Because XSS attack variants can take various forms, it is difficult to manually identify and inspect all attack surfaces against XSS attack variations due to the complexity of online applications in use today. As a result, automated web application security scanners are preferable since they can crawl the website automatically and check for cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. They identify and highlight the existing vulnerability of the URL and input parameters on the website’s script, which the website’s owner must then correct.
ZOFixer.com security scan helps to find this vulnerability in your web application, you can easily use it by registering on our website and activating the 30-day trial.