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Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

shkspr.mobi

21–30 of 67 posts

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#21
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, on mobile Firefox, there's no way to see the permissions of a page. Certainly no that I can see of FF for Android.

Firefox for Android developer here, you can long-tap on the location bar while on the page and select 'Edit Site Settings'. Is that what you're looking for?

Just says "There are no settings to clear." So no way to disable vibrate or autoplaying audio.

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#23
post #2

It doesn't even have to be a website. Phone scammers have been doing stuff like this for ages with pretty low tech. A general rule of dealing with spam like this is "if the source is unknown and it's from a pretty woman or an investment firm, it's a scam". My phone's black list is quite long. Of course, HTML-based ones can reach a larger number of users with little investment, so it's reasonable to expect this will o…

How do you know if the woman on the other end is pretty? :)

There's a great app for Android (in Sweden, I suppose there are similar apps for other countries) that searches digital phone registries on an incoming call and after about a second displays whatever data it has found on the incoming call screen (such as Telemarketing Company, Salesperson, etc) It also uses some form of rating system so if enough users have flagged a number, it will warn me about it. This has saved me countless of calls.

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#24
post #13
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Firefox right-click a page -> Page Info -> Permissions. Some APIs are allowed by default and some aren't. For the discussion about Vibration, see: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/Security/Vibration

You can't do this on a phone however as far as I know. The vibrate API is build for mobile devices.

Firefox OS phones already have support for this and yes, the phone vibrates without asking permissions.

Personally I don't see this as a big problem at all.

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the percentage of people browsing the Web while not looking at their phone is pretty low. I'm also not sure how the vibration would convince people who don't know how to use their phone. I would suspect this group would require less effort to manipulate.

not many people click legitimate ads. but a low enough percentage do, to make marginal gains in their effectiveness highly sought after I suspect malware works the same. It costs little to deploy, so even if 1 in 10,000 people are fooled, it can be lucrative.

My point was that I don't think the vibration would make much of a difference. But you're right that a small gain in the effectiveness could be worthwhile.

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#26
post #13
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Firefox right-click a page -> Page Info -> Permissions. Some APIs are allowed by default and some aren't. For the discussion about Vibration, see: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/Security/Vibration

You can't do this on a phone however as far as I know. The vibrate API is build for mobile devices.

I was replying to the question about getting a list of permissions a page uses/wants.

Neither Vibrate nor WebAudio require permissions from the webpage. Like basic JavaScript they always run. They're not security/privacy risks per se, just something that, like so many other things, could be used to support a phishing attack.

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#27

It ALWAYS needs to be an "Ask First" approach in the browser. I'm starting to have flashbacks of the days when people had music players that autoplay on websites, and how I hated that.

This gets obnoxious very quickly. Current Firefox excludes Flash from click-to-play because user were outraged against it. And note that Flash can do all of these things.

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#29
post #8
post #4

It is not impossible to conceive of malicious code being able to exploit an unpatched browser flaw and overdrive the motor to destruction. Uhm, if your argument against a HTML5 API is "it's possible that the browser is hackable" then I don't see the discussion going very far. Like, you can use the same argument against HTTP support. Combine it with a WebRTC call and you're looking at a very convincing scam. WebRTC do…

(OP here) It's certainly not "crucial" - but it's a lot easier to trick someone by exploiting their brain's heuristics. Phone vibrating means alert. I think that could be enough to trick people into overlooking elements like the title bar being visible, etc. For example, I've noticed that some dodgy web adverts play the default Windows Error.wav when displaying a fake "Your codecs need updating" error dialogue. Not c…

> I agree that the browser hacking is unlikely and probably shouldn't be mentioned.

It's not that it's unlikely, it's just irrelevant. "We might accidentally introduce a security flaw" could be used as an argument against building absolutely anything.

Re: Malicious Use of the HTML5 Vibrate API

#30
post #4

It is not impossible to conceive of malicious code being able to exploit an unpatched browser flaw and overdrive the motor to destruction. Uhm, if your argument against a HTML5 API is "it's possible that the browser is hackable" then I don't see the discussion going very far. Like, you can use the same argument against HTTP support. Combine it with a WebRTC call and you're looking at a very convincing scam. WebRTC do…

My mayor concern was:

> Autoplaying sound on adverts in annoying - auto-vibration could be just as irritating.

Sound can be mutated. I don’t know how difficult could be to turn off the vibration.

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