Yesterday, I was discussing with Jcran the risk associated with Cross Site Scripting and Redirects. First let me say, I know that URL redirects are an example of XSS. The type of Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability we were discussing is the reflective XSS. To clarify, URL redirects I mean taking a parameter which could be modified by the client, usually in a GET parameter being passed to a page which redirects to the parameter passed in.
Both of these vulnerabilities provide similar types of attack vectors against the client. Jcran took the view that reflective XSS has a greater risk associated with it since it does not require the client to navigate to another page the client may not trust. This is a fair assumption, however having software that does this sort of restriction is not very common in my opinion. If the client is restricting the browser to only pages that they "trust" then reflective XSS in this case is ideal.
However, it is not always the case that the client is performing such restrictions on the browser. If the page is performing some validation which restricts the type of input that can be done, this will limit the attack vectors. For example, if the page does not allow various Javascript related functions. These types of restriction can be bypassed in certain cases but this is not possible or practical due to time frame limitations.
If the attackers were to use a redirect then they would have no limitations on the type of attack that could be performed against the client. They would only need to bypass the software limiting the pages the client can navigate to. If the attacker uses this then they are not restricted in the type of attacks they can perform against the client.
It is interesting that there have not been a larger number of redirect vulnerabilities being disclosed in the security community. This may be due to the fact that some consider XSS to be a "lame" attack which should not be discussed on FD etc etc. I dunno just a few thoughts I have had.
Both of these vulnerabilities provide similar types of attack vectors against the client. Jcran took the view that reflective XSS has a greater risk associated with it since it does not require the client to navigate to another page the client may not trust. This is a fair assumption, however having software that does this sort of restriction is not very common in my opinion. If the client is restricting the browser to only pages that they "trust" then reflective XSS in this case is ideal.
However, it is not always the case that the client is performing such restrictions on the browser. If the page is performing some validation which restricts the type of input that can be done, this will limit the attack vectors. For example, if the page does not allow various Javascript related functions. These types of restriction can be bypassed in certain cases but this is not possible or practical due to time frame limitations.
If the attackers were to use a redirect then they would have no limitations on the type of attack that could be performed against the client. They would only need to bypass the software limiting the pages the client can navigate to. If the attacker uses this then they are not restricted in the type of attacks they can perform against the client.
It is interesting that there have not been a larger number of redirect vulnerabilities being disclosed in the security community. This may be due to the fact that some consider XSS to be a "lame" attack which should not be discussed on FD etc etc. I dunno just a few thoughts I have had.



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