Microsoft Edge Vulnerable To Cookie And Password Theft

The Microsoft Edge browser seems to have a severe password vulnerability. Recent reports reveal that attackers or hackers could easily obtain user password and cookie files for online accounts, a vulnerability that was discovered by security expert Manuel Caballero, someone with vast experience of unearthing Edge and Internet Explorer bugs and flaws.

Attackers can bypass Edge’s SOP protection

The vulnerability lets an attacker load and execute malicious code using data URIs, Meta refresh tag, and domainless pages such as about:blank. This exploitation technique has many variations and Caballero showed the ways in which a hacker could execute code on high-profile sites just by tricking users to access a malicious URL.

Caballero showed three demos in which he executed code on the Bing homepage, tweeted in the name of another user, and stole the password and cookie files from a Twitter account.

The last attack re-exposed a security error in the design of modern browsers: the hacker’s ability to logout a user, load a login page, and steal the user’s credentials automatically filled in by the browser’s password autofill feature.

The vulnerability is still unpatched. For this reason, Caballero provided demos to download so users can inspect the source code and make sure their passwords and cookies aren’t uploaded anywhere.

Attacks are automated by malvertising

Modern ads deliver JavaScript code to browsers and this is why attackers can facilitate malvertising campaigns to automate the delivery of this exploit to a huge amount of victims.

For more information, you can read Caballero’s technical description of the issue.

Attackers can bypass Edge’s SOP protection#

Attacks are automated by malvertising#

Attackers can bypass Edge’s SOP protection

Attacks are automated by malvertising