Paper

Trust and Protection in the Illinois Browser Operating System

http://www.usenix.org/events/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Tang.pdf

Shuo Tang, Haohui Mai, Samuel T. King

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig

Background Concepts

The Illinois Browser Operating System (IBOS) is not just a new browser to improve security, it is also a full operating system. It’s main goal is to expose browser-level abstractions at the lowest possible software layer, reducing the trusted computing base for web browsers. Many websites and web applications have become major targets for attackers and hackers. Just recently, cross-site scripting has become the most common security vulnerability over the age old buffer overflow.

Plenty of research has gone in to improving security among the various web browsers on the market today but all browsers still remain susceptible to attacks on the lower layers. Compromised Ethernet drivers can send sensitive HTTP packets to third parties, compromised storage modules can send persistent data to unwanted viewers and compromised window managers can overlay fake interfaces common in phishing attacks. Common web browsers run on top of commodity operating systems with shared system services and user-mode libraries, increasing the trusted code base. IBOS looks to solve this issue by exposing browser-level abstractions rather than just general-purpose abstractions. Important concepts such as cookies, HTTP connections and tabs for displaying pages are all brought into the browser abstraction layer.

Research problem

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Contribution

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Critique

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