AppSec EU 2017 The Evil Friend In Your Browser by Achim D  Brucker
Channel: OWASP Foundation
Date: 26/05/2017

On the one hand, browser extensions, e.g., for Chrome, are very useful, as they extend web browsers with additional functionality (e.g., blocking ads). On the other hand, they are the most dangerous code that runs in your browsers: extension can read and modify both the content displayed in the browser. As they also can communicate with any web-site or web-service, they can report data and metadata to external parties.

The current security model for browser extensions seems to be inadequate for expressing the security or privacy needs of browser users. Thus, browser extensions are a "juice target" for attackers targeting web users.

We present results of analysing over 2500 browser extensions on how they use the current security model and discuss examples of extensions that are potentially of high risk. Based on the results of our analysis of real world browser extensions as well as our own threat model, we discuss the limitations of the current security model form a user perspective.
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