XSS and JavaScript – a deadly combination
Hackers have been very creative when exploiting the XSS flaw and with the help of JavaScript, the attack possibilities increase. XSS combined with JavaScript can be used for the following types of attacks:
Account hijacking
Altering contents
Defacing complete website
Running a port scan from the victim's machine
Log key strokes
Stealing browser information
Let's discuss a few examples.
Cookie stealing
In every discussion of XSS attack, the first thing that we talk about is how cookies can be compromised using XSS and JavaScript. The stolen cookie can then be used by the attacker to impersonate the victim for the duration of the session until the user logs out of the application.
The document.cookie property of the HTML DOM returns the values of all cookies assigned to the current session. For example, the attacker can inject the following script in a comments section of a website vulnerable to a XSS attack:
<script language="Javascript"> Document.location...
