Robust Website Fingerprinting Through the Cache Occupancy Channel

guest · Nov 21, 2018

Talk about a cache flow problem: This JavaScript can snoop on other browser tabs to work out what you're visiting
November 21, 2018
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/21/unmasking_browsers_side_channels/

Computer science boffins have demonstrated a side-channel attack technique that bypasses recently-introduced privacy defenses, and makes even the Tor browser subject to tracking. The result: it is possible for malicious JavaScript in one web browser tab to spy on other open tabs, and work out which websites you're visiting.

The technique is described in a paper recently distributed through ArXiv called "Robust Website Fingerprinting Through the Cache Occupancy Channel."
Automatic identification
This fingerprinting attack involves using JavaScript to measure processor cache access latency over time as websites are loaded. These "memorygrams" are then compared via deep-learning techniques to a set of memorygrams collected by the attacker [...]

Using mainstream browsers on the closed set, the researchers were able to accurately classify 70 to 90 per cent of website visits. Applied to Tor, the attack managed accuracy of only 47 per cent, but when other data was considered, accuracy increased to 72 per cent.
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The takeaway, they contend, is that anything short of running a single browser tab at any one point in time poses a privacy risk: if you open a second tab, JavaScript in it can snoop on the other tab.

Disabling JavaScript completely will kill off the attack, but also kill off a lot of websites, which rely on JS functionality to work.
"If you want to visit sensitive and non-sensitive websites at the same time, use two different computers," they said.
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"Robust Website Fingerprinting Through the Cache Occupancy Channel" (PDF): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.07153.pdf

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