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International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security

ACNS 2014: Applied Cryptography and Network Security pp 513–530Cite as

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Polymorphism as a Defense for Automated Attack of Websites

Polymorphism as a Defense for Automated Attack of Websites

  • Xinran Wang18,
  • Tadayoshi Kohno19 &
  • Bob Blakley20 
  • Conference paper
  • 2696 Accesses

  • 6 Citations

Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNSC,volume 8479)

Abstract

We propose PolyRef, a method for a polymorphic defense to defeat automated attacks on web applications. Many websites are vulnerable to automated attacks. Basic anti-automation countermeasures such as Turing tests provide minimal efficacy and negatively impact the usability and the accessibility of the protected application. Motivated by the observation that many automated attacks rely on interaction with the publicly visible code transmitted to the browser, PolyRef proposes to make critical elements of the underlying webpage code polymorphic, rendering machine automation impractical to implement. We categorize the threats that rely on automation and the available anti-automation approaches. We present two techniques for using polymorphism as an anti-automation defense.

Keywords

  • Content Delivery Network
  • Authentication Credential
  • Account Creation
  • Automatic Static Analysis
  • Automation Test Tool

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shape Security, USA

    Xinran Wang

  2. University of Washington, USA

    Tadayoshi Kohno

  3. Citigroup, USA

    Bob Blakley

Authors
  1. Xinran Wang
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  2. Tadayoshi Kohno
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  3. Bob Blakley
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Akamai EMEA, Addlestone, UK

    Ioana Boureanu

  2. LAAS-CNRS, SARA, Toulouse, France

    Philippe Owesarski

  3. IC LASEC, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Serge Vaudenay

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Cite this paper

Wang, X., Kohno, T., Blakley, B. (2014). Polymorphism as a Defense for Automated Attack of Websites. In: Boureanu, I., Owesarski, P., Vaudenay, S. (eds) Applied Cryptography and Network Security. ACNS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8479. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07536-5_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07536-5_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07535-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07536-5

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