Intent to Prototype: Private Network Access preflight requests for subresources
Titouan Rigoudy
Contact emails
tit...@chromium.org, va...@chromium.org, cl...@chromium.orgExplainer
https://github.com/WICG/private-network-access/blob/main/explainer.mdSpecification
https://wicg.github.io/private-network-access/Design docs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FYPIeP90MQ_pQ6UAo0mCB3g2Z_AynfPWHbDnHIST6VI/edit
Summary
Sends a CORS preflight request ahead of any private network requests for subresources, asking for explicit permission from the target server. A private network request is any request from a public website to a private IP address or localhost, or from a private website (e.g. intranet) to localhost. Sending a preflight request mitigates the risk of cross-site request forgery attacks against private network devices such as routers, which are often not prepared to defend against this threat.
Blink component
Blink>SecurityFeature>CORS>PrivateNetworkAccessMotivation
Private network services are often ill-equipped to deal with cross-site request forgery attacks carried out by malicious code running in users' browsers. These attacks have been used to compromise the security of hundreds of thousands of users around the world. Private Network Access proposes to solve this problem by: 1. Requiring that private network requests be initiated by secure contexts. 2. Sending an augmented CORS preflight request before the actual request. Together, this ensures that private network devices must explicitly opt into receiving requests from secure and authenticated public websites.
Initial public proposal
https://discourse.wicg.io/t/transfer-cors-rfc1918-and-hsts-priming-to-wicg/1726TAG review
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/572TAG review status
PendingRisks
Interoperability and Compatibility
The main interoperability risk, as always, is if other browser engines do not implement this. Compat risk is straightforward: web servers that do not handle the new preflight requests will eventually break, once the feature ships. The plan to address this is as follows: 1. Send preflight requests, ignore result, always send actual request. 2. Wait for 2 milestones. 3. Gate actual request on preflight request success, with deprecation trial for developers to buy some more time. 4. End deprecation trial 4 milestones later. UseCounters: https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3753 https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3754 https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3755 https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3756 https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3757 https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3758 The above measure pages that make at least one private network request for which we would now send a preflight request.
Gecko: Under consideration (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/143)
WebKit: No signal
Web developers: No signals