XHOUND - Quantifying the Fingerprintability of Browser Extensions

Explore the fingerprintability of browser extensions in this IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy presentation. Delve into the XHOUND system, an automated tool for fingerprinting browser extensions, and its application to 10,000 popular Google Chrome extensions. Examine how an extension's activity in a page's DOM can reveal its presence, and understand the implications for user privacy. Learn about the survey conducted on users' installed extensions and the potential for unique identification. Discover the proof-of-concept extension-fingerprinting script developed from XHOUND's results, demonstrating how trackers can fingerprint multiple extensions rapidly. Consider the intrusive nature of extension-based fingerprinting compared to other browser and system properties, and explore potential defense strategies against this tracking method.

Introduction
Browser Extensions
Browser Plugins
Visible Side Effects
Security Implications
Threat Models
Popular URL
Extension Hound
Honey Pages
Results
detectable extensions per category
Firefox extensions
Survey
Analysis
Entropy
Detection logic
Extension load time
Related Work
Summary
Questions