Finding Vulnerabilities in Rich Internet Applications (Flex/AS3) Using Static Techniques

Abstract

---The number and the importance of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) have increased rapidly over the last years. At the same time, the quantity and impact of security vulnerabilities in such rich internet applications (RIA) have increasing as well. Since manual code reviews are time consuming, error prone and costly and it need skilled developers or programmers to review the manual source code review, the need for automated solutions has become evident. In this paper, we address the problem of application security vulnerable detection in Adobe Flex (Rich Internet Applications) platform in web 2.0 applications by means of static source code analysis. To this end, we present precise analysis targeted at the unique reference semantics commonly found in RIA based web applications or widgets (small applications which will run on fly i.e. drag and drop) developed in Adobe Flex Framework or Action Script 3.0. Moreover, we enhance the quality and quantity of the generated vulnerability reports.