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🌟 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. 🌟
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