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<h1 style="text-align: center;">Securing Resources from Untrusted
Scripts Behind Firewalls<big><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></big></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: center;"><small><small><big><span
style="font-weight: normal;">by</span></big>&nbsp;</small></small><big><big><span
style="font-weight: bold;"></span></big></big></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: center;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><a
href="mailto:rayw@netscape.com">Ray Whitmer</a> and <a
href="maiilto:harishd@netscape.com">Harish Dhurvasula</a></small><br>
</h1>
<h2>Introduction<br>
</h2>
This page describes an alternative mechanism which can be used to
protect all internal resources against requests from sandboxed
scripts. &nbsp;This should especially be implemented for SOAP calls
by untrusted scripts. &nbsp;When an attempt is made to access a
resource at a previously-unknown URI, the sandbox reads a file at that
domain with declarations to determine whether access is permitted to
the script. &nbsp;If the file is not there, access is denied.<br>
<h2>The Problem<br>
</h2>
External untrusted scripts loaded behind a firewall are executed in a
sandbox. &nbsp;These scripts may legitimately require access to external
resources, but permitting them to access internal resources permits the
compromise of these resources that would normally not be available to
applications outside of the firewall. &nbsp;The sandbox must
distinguish and protect internal resources.<br>
<h2>Client-controlled Solutions</h2>
Several client-controlled solutions have been designed to prevent
sandboxed applications loaded behind a firewall from compromising
other resources protected behind the firewall.
<h3> Same Source Restriction.</h3>
By restricting sandboxed scripts to access only resources in the domain
from which they were loaded, any script loaded from one domain into
another is prevented from accessing &nbsp;resources in the domain
into which it has been loaded. &nbsp;This policy has generally been
successful in sandboxing Javascript and Java applets across the web.<br>
<br>
If the sandbox is unable to distinguish the common URI substring of the
domain to be trusted from similar URIs of untrusted domains, then it
could allow a script loaded from an indistinguishable domain to
exploit firewall-protected resources.<br>
<br>
Also, this technique prevents the script from accessing many legitimate
external resources not provided in the same domain as the script.
&nbsp;This prevents a script from accessing web services and data
published from any domain besides its own.<br>
<h3>White-listing</h3>
By creating a white list of trusted URIs from which scripts are trusted
to not compromise internal resources, it is possible to release domains
from the stricter same-source sandbox. &nbsp;A white list is a good tool
for including always-trusted domains, but on the web, it is often a
script from a relatively-untrusted domain that must be granted access
to other untrusted domains, without compromising internal domains.<br>
<br>
More-complex access lists could be created to try to establish, with
finer granularity, which domains are to be accessible or permitted
from which other domains, but this requires extensive management which
at best is quite error-prone for the end user and easily opens holes
in a firewall that do not directly hurt the user who reconfigured his
browser to try to access some external service but hurts the owners of
other services behind the firewall.<br>
<h3>Signed Scripts</h3>
A certain degree of additional trust may be lent to a script by having
the author digitally sign it. &nbsp;But signed scripts have not really
caught on as they require certificates do not change the basic
problem that some completely-unknown party has written a script that
might now have access to internal resources.<br>
<h3>Asking the User</h3>
Where the sandbox cannot otherwise determine whether the executing
script should be permitted access to the resource, a dialog box may
be raised to ask the user to grant special privileges. &nbsp;This is
currently permitted for locally-saved scripts and signed scripts.
&nbsp;This could be combined with the other options above such as
whitelisting, signed scripts, etc. &nbsp;But the big problem with this
is that the typical browser user really does not either understand or
pay the consequences if he inadvertently opens a hole in his company's
firewall. &nbsp;Quite complex settings may be required to permit the
user to allow access to desired external services without risking
other resources.<br>
<h2>Controlling Resource Access on the Server</h2>
Access by untrusted scripts really needs to be under the control of the
stake holder, which is the resource and server owner -- not the user --
to determine whether a resource should be insulated from web
applications loaded from outside of the firewall.<br>
<h3>Using a SOAP Header for Verification</h3>
SOAP messages have a distinct processing model allowing a header to be
added that the recipient is required to understand and accept, which
identifies the untrusted source of a script making a request.
&nbsp;SOAP services which have not been cleared for access by
untrusted scripts will reject the requests. &nbsp;This is offered in
the Mozilla implementation of SOAP today.<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, this does not prevent SOAP messages from being sent to
non-SOAP addresses, which is a big enough problem that the verification
cannot stand alone to guarantee that untrusted service requests are
always properly rejected by services that should be firewall-protected.<br>
<br>
It may also be inconvenient to modify a SOAP service to ignore the
specific verification header.<br>
<h3>Using a Declarations File<br>
</h3>
A more robust solution is to rely on getting a file named "<code>web-scripts-access.xml</code>"
in the root directory of the server that the sandboxed script requests
to communicate with. &nbsp;It should be fairly easy for most
providers of public resources to create.<br>
<h2>Web Scripts Access Statements<br>
</h2>
The syntax of statements of the access file are as follows.
<pre>&lt;!ELEMENT webScriptAccess (delegate?|allow*)&gt;<br>&lt;!ELEMENT delegate EMPTY&gt;<br>&lt;!ELEMENT allow EMPTY&gt;<br>&lt;!ATTLIST allow type|from CDATA #IMPLIED&gt;.<br></pre>
<h3>The Root Element<br>
</h3>
The first element of the file should be the following:<br>
<code><br>
&lt;wsa:webScriptAccess
xmlns:wsa="http://www.mozilla.org/2002/soap/security</code>"&gt;<br>
<h3>Delegation</h3>
If the &lt;<code>delegate</code>/&gt; element is present then "<code>web-scripts-access.xml</code>"
is required in the subdirectory for URIs which are in a subdirectory.
&nbsp;For example, if the script in question is "<code>http://www.example.com/foo/bar.xml</code>",
then the declarations file <code>http://www.example.com/web-scripts-access.xml</code>
which contains the "<code>delegate</code>" keyword delegates to <code>http://www.example.com/foo/web-scripts-access.xml</code>.
&nbsp;If the URI is in a subdirectory, and the root directory's access
file delegated but no access file exists in the subdirectory, then no
access is granted. &nbsp;If the root's access file did not delegate,
then that access file also handles all resources in subdirectories.<br>
<br>
Any syntax error in the document will result in the rest of the file to
be ignored. &nbsp;Since the commands only allow access, the order of
processing the "<code>allow</code>" commands that were successfully
parsed is never significant.<br>
<h3>Allowing Web Script Access</h3>
To permit scripts to access the resources of this server, use the
following command:<br>
<br>
<code>&lt;wsa:allow</code> <code></code>type="&lt;request-type&gt;" <code>from</code>
="&lt;uri-prefix&gt;"/&gt;<br>
<br>
The type of request, if specified, will be checked against the type of
request being requested by the script, such as <code></code>"<code>soap</code>",
"<code>soapv</code>", or "<code>load</code>". &nbsp;Types must not
contain spaces. &nbsp;Specify "<code>any</code>" as the type to permit
any requested type of access to resources.<br>
<br>
The principle URI of the script will be checked for the specified URI
prefix. &nbsp;If "<code>from</code>" is not specified, then all scripts
will be allowed. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Note:</span> One can
also use wild character(s) in "from" value.<br>
<br>
For example:<br>
<code><br>
&lt;wsa:allow type="soapv" from="http://www.mozilla.org"/&gt;</code><br>
<br>
This command allows SOAP requests with verification headers from
scripts loaded from the domain www.mozilla.org.<br>
<br>
<code> &lt;wsa:allow type="soapv" from="http://*.mozilla.org"/&gt;<br>
<br>
</code> This command allows SOAP requests with verification headers from
scripts loaded from the domain with host name containing mozilla.org.
That is, http://www.mozilla.org/, http://lxr.mozilla.org,
http://komodo.mozilla.org, etc. will be granted access.<br>
<h2>Implementation</h2>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">nsIWebScriptsAccessService</span><br>
This interface provides a way to check whether the running script has
access to the server that the script wishes to communicate.<br>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><span
style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<ul>
<li>boolean canAccess(in nsIURI aTransportURI, in AString aType);</li>
<ul>
<li>aTransportURI - The service URI&nbsp;</li>
<li>aType - Type requested &nbsp;by the script ( ex. soapv, soap,
load, etc. )</li>
<li>return PR_TRUE if access granted else PR_FALSE</li>
</ul>
<li> void invalidateCache(in string aTransportURI);</li>
<ul>
<li>Invalidate cached entry for the given transport uri.</li>
<li>Empty the cache by passing in a empty string<br>
</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">nsWebScriptsAccess</span>&nbsp;
( <span style="font-style: italic;">Implements
nsIWebScriptsAccessService)<br>
</span>Maintains access information, for servers, in an
access-info-cache ( hashtable ). If an entry was not found in the cache
creates one by loading the declaration file ( web-scripts-access.xml )
and extracting information from it ( declaration file ); requested <span
style="font-style: italic;">type</span> and subject princple's <span
style="font-style: italic;">prefix</span> are compared to the allowed
type and prefix in order to determine access. An entry is created if
and only if the declaration file is considered valid ( validation based
on the syntax described above ); an invalid document will result in
access denial. Denies script access in the event of an
xml-wellformedness error, or validation error, or if the declaration
file does not grant access. Reports errors ( validation,
wellformedness, file not found, etc. ) to the&nbsp; console via
nsIConsoleService.<br>
<br>
Note: Script access is checked via declaration file only if the script
security manager denies access.<span style="font-style: italic;"><span
style="font-style: italic;"></span><br>
</span>
<ul>
</ul>
<h2>Summary</h2>
<h3>Advantages</h3>
The proposed declaration file places the server operator, not the
client in control of access to his server by untrusted scripts.
&nbsp;The access hole is no bigger than the service in question.
&nbsp;The access is disabled by default, and there is nothing the
user needs to do to open access, and nothing that can go wrong to
make a hole in his firewall. &nbsp;It seems fairly easy to drop an
access file into the root directory of the web server to allow access.<br>
<h3>Delegation with Mixed Ownership</h3>
Independent owners of subdirectories cannot grant web script access to
these subdirectories without getting the owner of the root directory to
post a delegating access file. &nbsp;Normally a server will be either
inside or outside of a firewall, so this is not a problem. &nbsp;Where
a server spans multiple owners, the alternative would be to scan all
directories in the path looking for a web scripts access file, which
seems undesirable. &nbsp;On the other hand, perhaps it is not so bad,
since it permits independent management in domains where the top level
owner may not care about providing access to web services.<br>
<h3>Adjustments</h3>
As this new model is applied to SOAP, and potentially document.load or
xml-request, it may be desirable to eliminate the same source security
bypass, because it is not clear that this is always secure.
&nbsp;Other security adjustments may be desired as well.<br>
<h2>Feedback?</h2>
Please send me some feedback on this proposal.<br>
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