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(Ex)Tensions: A Cross-Platform Analysis of Malicious Browser Extensions
Halmstad University, School of Information Technology.
Halmstad University, School of Information Technology.
2025 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Our paper investigates behavioural trends with users and extensions across three popular web browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox, and explores the viability of comparing file hashes to identify potentially malicious extensions in each web store. We created a cross-sectional dataset for analysis of extension ecosystems by developing Python-based web crawlers for each of the web stores and used a dataset of known malicious extensions to compare it to. The analysis of our results shows that there is significant overlap in commonly used JavaScript libraries across browsers. Here, Edge stands out, with 12.49% of extensions sharing at least one hash with an extension in the dataset of known malicious extensions. This suggests a practical approach for cross-platform detection of possibly malicious extensions with file analysis.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. , p. 31
Keywords [en]
web browsers, browser extensions, malware, malware detection, security
National Category
Computer Sciences Security, Privacy and Cryptography
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-56632OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-56632DiVA, id: diva2:1974525
Subject / course
Digital Forensics
Educational program
IT Forensics and Information Security, 180 credits
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2025-06-24 Created: 2025-06-23 Last updated: 2025-10-01Bibliographically approved

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fulltext(1333 kB)127 downloads
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4c447b375378fa9edd5beb2356fe390c26823bda62a36c4354b7fe2d7dc8f0db51a9099e1fc812c0d3d35d7d8af9cf77503f3eb259fb50f1f347b8b2f0fb42f5
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

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School of Information Technology
Computer SciencesSecurity, Privacy and Cryptography

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf