Related papers: Tracking Protection in Firefox For Privacy and Per…
During the past few years, mostly as a result of the GDPR and the CCPA, websites have started to present users with cookie consent banners. These banners are web forms where the users can state their preference and declare which cookies…
We identify class of covert channels in browsers that are not mitigated by current defenses, which we call "pool-party" attacks. Pool-party attacks allow sites to create covert channels by manipulating limited-but-unpartitioned resource…
Third-party web cookies are often used for privacy-invasive behavior tracking. Partly due to privacy concerns, browser vendors have started to block all third-party cookies in recent years. To understand the effects of such third-party…
This PhD thesis discusses how European law could improve privacy protection in the area of behavioural targeting. Behavioural targeting, also referred to as online profiling, involves monitoring people's online behaviour, and using the…
To what extent are users surveilled on the web, by what technologies, and by whom? We answer these questions by combining passively observed, anonymized browsing data of a large, representative sample of Americans with domain-level data on…
Website Fingerprinting (WF) is a type of traffic analysis attack that enables a local passive eavesdropper to infer the victim's activity, even when the traffic is protected by a VPN or an anonymity system like Tor. Leveraging a…
Virtually every connection to an Internet service is preceded by a DNS lookup which is performed without any traffic-level protection, thus enabling manipulation, redirection, surveillance, and censorship. To address these issues, large…
Online tracking is a primary concern for Internet users, yet previous research has not found a clear link between the cognitive understanding of tracking and protective actions. We postulate that protective behaviour follows affective…
Tor, a widely utilized privacy network, enables anonymous communication but is vulnerable to flow correlation attacks that deanonymize users by correlating traffic patterns from Tor's ingress and egress segments. Various defenses have been…
This work presents a systematic study of navigational tracking, the latest development in the cat-and-mouse game between browsers and online trackers. Navigational tracking allows trackers to 'aggregate users' activities and behaviors…
Small TCP flows make up the majority of web flows. For them, the TCP three-way handshake induces significant delay overhead. The TCP Fast Open (TFO) protocol can significantly decrease this delay via zero round-trip time (0-RTT) handshakes…
Websites employ third-party ads and tracking services leveraging cookies and JavaScript code, to deliver ads and track users' behavior, causing privacy concerns. To limit online tracking and block advertisements, several ad-blocking (black)…
The growth of digitalization services via web browsers has simplified our daily routine of doing business. But at the same time, it has made the web browser very attractive for several cyber-attacks. Web phishing is a well-known cyberattack…
`Tracking' is the collection of data about an individual's activity across multiple distinct contexts and the retention, use, or sharing of data derived from that activity outside the context in which it occurred. This paper aims to…
This paper introduces adF, a novel system for analyzing the vulnerability of different devices, Operating Systems (OSes), and browsers to web fingerprinting. adF performs its measurements from code inserted in ads. We have used our system…
Tracking pixels are used to optimize online ad campaigns through personalization, re-targeting, and conversion tracking. Past research has primarily focused on detecting the prevalence of tracking pixels on the web, with limited attention…
Content filtering in web browsers is a tedious process for most of the people, because of several reasons. By blocking JavaScript, Cookies and Popups, end users can ensure maximum protection from browser based attacks and vulnerabilities.…
Online privacy has become increasingly important in recent years. While third-party cookies have been widely used for years, they have also been criticized for their potential impact on user privacy. They can be used by advertisers to track…
Web traffic is a valuable data source, typically used in the marketing space to track brand awareness and advertising effectiveness. However, web traffic is also a rich source of information for cybersecurity monitoring efforts. To better…
With the advance of technology, Criminal Justice agencies are being confronted with an increased need to investigate crimes perpetuated partially or entirely over the Internet. These types of crime are known as cybercrimes. In order to…