On the Perils of Leaking Referrers in Online Collaboration Services

Abstract

Online collaboration services (OCS) are appealing since they provide ease of access to resources and the ability to collaborate on shared files. Documents on these services are frequently shared via secret links, which allows easy collaboration between different users. The security of this secret link approach relies on the fact that only those who know the location of the secret resource (i.e., its URL) can access it. In this paper, we show that the secret location of OCS files can be leaked by the improper handling of links embedded in these files. Specifically, if a user clicks on a link embedded into a file hosted on an OCS, the HTTP Referer contained in the resulting HTTP request might leak the secret URL. We present a study of 21 online collaboration services and show that seven of them are vulnerable to this kind of secret information disclosure caused by the improper handling of embedded links and HTTP Referers. We identify two root causes of these issues, both having to do with an incorrect application of the Referrer Policy, a countermeasure designed to restrict how HTTP Referers are shared with third parties. In the first case, six services leak their referrers because they do not implement a strict enough and up-to-date policy. In the second case, one service correctly implements an appropriate Referrer Policy, but some web browsers do not obey it, causing links clicked through them to leak their HTTP Referers. To fix this problem, we discuss how services can apply the Referrer Policy correctly to avoid these incidents, as well as other server and client side countermeasures.

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