Browser Fingerprinting using Combinatorial Sequence Testing

Garn, Bernhard; Simos, Dimitris; Zimmer, Stefan; Kuhn, Richard; Kacker, Raghu

doi:https://doi.org/10.1145/3314058.3314062

Conference Proceedings

Browser Fingerprinting using Combinatorial Sequence Testing

Documentation Topics

Published: April 01, 2019

Author(s)

Bernhard Garn (SBA Research), Dimitris Simos (SBA Research), Stefan Zimmer (FH Campus Wien), Richard Kuhn (NIST), Raghu Kacker (NIST)

Conference

Name: Hot Topics in the Science of Security
Dates: April 1-3, 2019
Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Citation: HotSoS '19: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Symposium on Hot Topics in the Science of Security, pp. 1-9

Abstract

In this paper, we report on the applicability of combinatorial sequence testing methods to the problem of fingerprinting browsers based on their behavior during a TLS handshake. We created an appropriate abstract model of the TLS handshake protocol and used it to map browser behavior to a feature vector and use them to derive a distinguisher. Using combinatorial methods, we created test sets consisting of TLS server-side messages as sequences that are sent to the client as server responses during the TLS handshake. Further, we evaluate our approach with a case study showing that combinatorial properties have an impact on browsers’ behavior.

Keywords

combinatorial testing; security testing; browser fingerprinting

Control Families

None selected

Documentation

Publication:
Conference Proceedings (DOI)

Supplemental Material:
Preprint (other)

Document History:
04/01/19: Conference Proceedings (Final)

Topics

Security and Privacy
assurance; testing & validation

Technologies
networks; software & firmware