Extension Auditor

🌟 After watching MegaLag's Video about the PayPal Honey browser extension, I had a wake-up call.

And as it turns out, this is exactly the motivation I needed to create something that solves this and empowers everyday users to take back control of their data privacy.

💡 It was eye-opening—and infuriating.

As someone who cares about 🛡️ user privacy and security, I couldn’t ignore the risks that browser extensions like Honey can pose.

🚀 So, I built... Introducing: Extension Auditor

Extension Auditor is a browser extension that helps users understand and evaluate the security implications of their installed browser extensions.

It provides real-time security analysis and risk assessment of extensions based on their permissions, capabilities, and potential security impacts.

🔑 Features

🔍 Real-time Security Analysis: Instantly analyzes installed extensions for security considerations.

⚠️ Risk Classification: Categorizes findings into Critical, High, Medium, and Low severity levels.

🛡️ Permission Analysis: Detailed explanation of each extension’s permissions and their security implications.

🌐 Host Access Analysis: Identifies extensions with broad host permissions or access to sensitive domains.

📊 Comprehensive Report: Generates detailed security reports with specific findings and potential risks.

🕵️ Privacy Focus: Runs locally in your browser with minimal required permissions.

👥 Who can benefit

🌐 Everyday Internet Users: Stay informed and secure.

🎥 Content Creators: Vet extensions before promoting them to your audience.

🔒 Cybersecurity Professionals: A great starting point for pentesting browser extensions to guide deeper dynamic and runtime analysis.

🔍 Privacy Professionals: Discern privacy concerns of using an extension and compare advertised privacy practices vs. actual use.

🛠️ How it works

Extension Auditor analyzes extensions based on several factors:

🔑 Permission Analysis: Evaluates the permissions requested by extensions and their potential security implications.

🌐 Host Access: Identifies broad host permissions that could pose privacy risks.

💻 Content Script Analysis: Examines how extensions interact with web pages.

📜 Manifest Analysis: Reviews extension manifest settings for security best practices.

📈 Combined Risk Assessment: Calculates overall risk based on multiple security factors.

🔒 Risk Rating Methodology

🚨 Critical: Highly sensitive permissions or combinations that could be dangerous if misused.

⚠️ High: Permissions that could potentially be used maliciously.

⚡ Medium: Permissions that require caution as they provide significant capabilities.

✅ Low: Permissions with limited potential for misuse.

🛡️ Privacy

Extension Auditor requires only two permissions:

management: To access information about installed extensions.

tabs: To display the analysis interface.

💡 The extension runs entirely in your browser and:

❌ Does not collect any personal data.

❌ Does not send data to external servers.

❌ Does not modify any other extensions.

❌ Does not modify webpage content.

🔑 Permissions Explained

A permission is either one of a list of known strings, such as activeTab, or a match pattern giving access to one or more hosts. Remove any permission that is not needed to fulfill the single purpose of your extension.

⚙️ The management permission is essential for this extension because it allows us to:

📋 List and access information about installed extensions using chrome.management.getAll().

📖 Get detailed extension information using chrome.management.get(extensionId).

🔄 Monitor extension lifecycle events through listeners.

We use this permission to:

📜 Get manifest details.

🔑 Check permissions.

📂 Monitor content scripts.

🛡️ Analyze security settings.

🔄 Track extension states (enabled/disabled).

🌐 Get host permissions.

⚙️ Access CSP (Content Security Policy) settings.

Without the management permission, it would be impossible to perform security analysis—making this the core permission that enables the extension’s main functionality.

🌍 Let’s make browsing safer—for all of us. 🌟