Twenty-two years since revealing cross-site scripting attacks: a systematic mapping and a comprehensive survey

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive survey and systematic mapping of 147 studies on cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks and defenses since 1999, highlighting existing techniques, limitations, and gaps in securing web applications against XSS.

Contribution

It offers the first extensive taxonomy and analysis of XSS defense strategies, revealing biases and identifying gaps in current research and solutions.

Findings

Bias towards basic and JavaScript XSS attacks

Limited vulnerability repair mechanisms

Identified gaps in existing defenses

Abstract

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is one of the major threats menacing the privacy of data and the navigation of trusted web applications. Since its reveal in late 1999 by Microsoft security engineers, several techniques have been developed in the aim to secure web navigation and protect web applications against XSS attacks. The problem became worse with the emergence of advanced web technologies such as Web services and APIs and new programming styles such as AJAX, CSS3 and HTML5. While new technologies enable complex interactions and data exchanges between clients and servers in the network, new programming styles introduce new and complicate injection flaws to web applications. XSS has been and still in the TOP 10 list of web vulnerabilities reported by the Open Web Applications Security Project (OWASP). Consequently, handling XSS attacks became one of the major concerns of several web security communities. In this paper, we contribute by conducting a systematic mapping and a comprehensive survey. We summarize and categorize existent endeavors that aim to protect against XSS attacks and develop XSS-free web applications. The present review covers 147 high quality published studies since 1999 including early publications of 2022. A comprehensive taxonomy is drawn out describing the different techniques used to prevent, detect, protect and defend against XSS attacks. Although the diversity of XSS attack types and the scripting languages that can be used to state them, the systematic mapping revealed a remarkable bias toward basic and JavaScript XSS attacks and a dearth of vulnerability repair mechanisms. The survey highlighted the limitations, discussed the potentials of existing XSS attack defense mechanisms and identified potential gaps.