We show how BEAST exploits a weakness in SSL to decrypt secret cookies. Please note that BEAST does not do any harm to remote servers. In fact, no packet from BEAST has ever been sent to any servers. We chose PayPal because they do everything right when it comes to server-side SSL, and that is good to demonstrate the power of BEAST, which is a client-side SSL attack. We reported the vulnerability to browser, plugin and SSL vendors several months ago (CVE-2011-3389). Current version of BEAST consists of Javascript/applet agents and a network sniffer. We have some choices for the agent. At the time we reported the bug to vendors, HTML5 WebSockets could be used to build a BEAST agent but, due to unrelated reasons, the WebSockets protocol was already in the process of changing in such a way that stopped it. We can't use the new WebSockets protocol shipped with browsers. We use a Java applet in this video, but please be aware that it may be possible to implement a Javascript agent with XMLHttpRequest as well. Why don't you take a look? ;-) Note that it is relatively easy to run a script or an applet in your browser without you doing anything (eg, by intercepting any HTTP requests from your browser.) After all, each agent is just a piece of Javascript or an applet. Once an agent has been loaded, BEAST can patiently wait until you sign in to some valuable websites to steal your accounts. In order to make the Java applet agent work, we have to bypass the same-origin policy (SOP ...
