Web browser fingerprinting is a common technique to identify individual users or devices. However, exploitation of the web browser fingerprinting vulnerability in corporate environments that can lead to unauthorized data leakage has not been adequately explored. In this paper, we propose and examine an enhanced way of web browser fingerprinting that is capable of circumventing typical corporate network boundary protection devices. We compare the proposed enhanced fingerprinting with legacy fingerprinting techniques in network environments secured by VPNs, proxy servers and NAT. Our experimental results demonstrate that web browser fingerprints obtained from corporate-owned computers could leak information about the internal structure of the organization. Examples are shown to illustrate that legacy fingerprinting techniques, used from outside of the corporate network boundaries, fail to distinguish computers that have same hardware and software configurations. It is shown in the paper that the proposed fingerprinting technique can uniquely identify devices on the corporate network by circumventing the network boundary protection provided by proxy servers, VPNs and NATs.

Published in: World Congress on Internet Security (WorldCIS-2017)

• Date of Conference: 11-14 December 2017
• DOI: 10.2053/WorldCIS.2017.0013
• ISBN: 978-1-908320-81-0
• Conference Location: University of Cambridge, UK