Cross-Site Scripting (also known as XSS) is one of the most common application-layer web attacks.

XSS vulnerabilities target scripts embedded in a page that are executed on the client-side (in the
users web browser) rather than on the server-side. XSS in itself is a threat that is brought about by
the internet security weaknesses of client-side scripting languages, such as HTML and JavaScript. The
concept of XSS is to manipulate client-side scripts of a web application to execute in the manner
desired by the malicious user. Such a manipulation can embed a script in a page that can be
executed every time the page is loaded, or whenever an associated event is performed.

XSS is the most common security vulnerability in software today. This should not be the case as XSS
is easy to find and easy to fix. XSS vulnerabilities can have consequences such as tampering and
sensitive data theft.

Key Concepts of XSS

XSS is a web-based attack performed on vulnerable web applications.

In XSS attacks, the victim is the user and not the application.

In XSS attacks, malicious content is delivered to users using JavaScript.

An XSS vulnerability arises when web applications take data from users and dynamically include it in
web pages without first properly validating the data. XSS vulnerabilities allow an attacker to execute
arbitrary commands and display arbitrary content in a victim user's browser. A successful XSS attack
leads to an attacker controlling the victims browser or account on the vulnerable web application.
Although XSS is enabled by vulnerable pages in a web application, the victims of an XSS attack are
the application's users, not the application itself. The potency of an XSS vulnerability lies in the fact
that the malicious code executes in the context of the victim's session, allowing the attacker to
bypass normal security restrictions.

XSS Attack Examples

Reflective XSS
There are many ways in which an attacker can entice a victim into initiating a reflective XSS request.
For example, the attacker could send the victim a misleading email with a link containing malicious
JavaScript. If the victim clicks on the link, the HTTP request is initiated from the victim's browser and
sent to the vulnerable web application. The malicious JavaScript is then reflected back to the victim's
browser, where it is executed in the context of the victim user's session.
Persistent XSS

Consider a web application that allows users to enter a username that is displayed on each
users profile page. The application stores each username in a local database. A malicious
user notices that the web application fails to sanitize the username field and inputs malicious
JavaScript code as part of their username. When other users view the attackers profile page,
the malicious code automatically executes in the context of their session.

Impact of Cross-Site Scripting

When attackers succeed in exploiting XSS vulnerabilities, they can gain access to account
credentials. They can also spread web worms or access the users computer and view the
users browser history or control the browser remotely. After gaining control to the victims
system, attackers can also analyze and use other intranet applications.
By exploiting XSS vulnerabilities, an attacker can perform malicious actions, such as:

Hijack an account.
Spread web worms.
Access browser history and clipboard contents.
Control the browser remotely.
Scan and exploit intranet appliances and applications.

Preventing XSS Vulnerabilities

To prevent cross-site scripting vulnerabilities it is very important to apply a context
dependent output encoding. In some cases it might be enough to encode the HTML
special characters, such as opening and closing tags. In other cases a correctly applied
URL encoding is necessary. Links should generally be disallowed if they don't begin
with a whitelisted protocol such as http:// or https://, thus preventing the use of URI
schemes such as javascript://.
Even though most modern web browsers have an inbuilt XSS filter they should not be
seen as an alternative to sanitization. They cannot catch all kinds of cross-site
 scripting attacks and are not strict so not to lead to false positives, which would
prevent some pages from loading correctly. A web browser's XSS filter should only
be a "second line of defense" and the idea is to minimise the impact of existing
vulnerabilities.
Developers should not use blacklists as there is a variety of bypasses for them.
Another thing they should avoid using is the stripping of dangerous functions and
characters as the browsers' XSS filters can't recognize the dangerous payloads when
the output is tampered with allowing for possible bypasses. That being said, the only
recommended prevention of XSS is encoding as mentioned above.