Detection of over-privileged and malicious extensions

What is it about?

Developers use natural language to explain the functionality of browser extensions. According to the extension’s description, users motivate to install an extension and confirm the requested privileges. Most of users do not check the code of extension to ensure that the requested privileges are really needed. OPEXA automatically detects over-privileged extensions that request more privileges than it seems to be required. It utilizes machine learning algorithms to predict which privileges are really necessary.

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Why is it important?

Over-privileged extensions may be misused to compromise systems. OPEXA assists security experts and users in detecting over-privileged extensions. Thus, it would reduce the workload of security analysts by automating the process of extracting required privileges from extensions’ descriptions. Furthermore, OPEXA can be used by developers to enrich their descriptions or minimize their extension’s privileges.