An Empirical Study of the Framework Impact on the Security of JavaScript Web Applications

Abstract

\textitBackground: JavaScript frameworks are widely used to create client-side and server-side parts of contemporary web applications. Vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting introduce significant risks in web applications.\\ \textitAim: The goal of our study is to understand how the security features of a framework impact the security of the applications written using that framework.\\ \textitMethod: In this paper, we present four locations in an application, relative to the framework being used, where a mitigation can be applied. We perform an empirical study of JavaScript applications that use the three most common template engines: Jade/Pug, EJS, and Angular. Using automated and manual analysis of each group of applications, we identify the number of projects vulnerable to cross-site scripting, and the number of vulnerabilities in each project, based on the framework used.\\ \textitResults: We analyze the results to compare the number of vulnerable projects to the mitigation locations used in each framework and perform statistical analysis of confounding variables.\\ \textitConclusions: The location of the mitigation impacts the application's security posture, with mitigations placed within the framework resulting in more secure applications.