[Full-disclosure] Stealing Search Engine Queries with JavaScript

["Billy Hoffman" <Billy.Hoffman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

SPI Labs has discovered a practical method of using JavaScript to detect the 
search queries a user has entered into arbitrary search engines. All the code 
needed to steal a user's search queries is written in JavaScript and uses 
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This code could be embedded into any website 
either by the website owner or by a malicious third party through a Cross-site 
Scripting (XSS) attack. There it would harvest information about every visitor 
to that site.

 

Possible uses:

-HMO's website could check if a visitor has been searching other sites about 
cancer, cancer treatments, or drug rehab centers.

-Advertising networks could gather information about which topics someone is 
interested based on their search history and use that to echance their customer 
databases.

-Government websites could see if a visitor has been searching for bomb-making 
instructions.

 

SPI has published a whitepaper about this technique and has also release proof  
of concept code that will steal search engine queries. Works solid in Firefox, 
and IE support is a little shaky on multi word queries.

 

Whitepaper: http://www.spidynamics.com/assets/documents/JS_SearchQueryTheft.pdf

Proof of Concept: http://www.spidynamics.com/spilabs/js-search/index.html

 

Have fun,

Billy Hoffman

--

Lead R&D Engineer

SPI Dynamics - http://www.spidynamics.com <http://www.spidynamics.com/> 

Phone: 678-781-4800

Direct: 678-781-4845

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