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Sure, BrowserGap is a remote browser isolation product. RBI means accessing the public internet through a browser that runs in the cloud, rather than through a

Sure, BrowserGap is a remote browser isolation product. RBI means accessing the public internet through a browser that runs in the cloud, rather than through a browser that runs on your device. This helps protect you from attacks on the web.

slowenough 7y ago
And, if you're interested, read on for more detail. It works by providing a thin client over the web that you connect your regular browser to. The thin client provides an interface to a remote browser that you interact with the browser the public internet. This is significant because the internet is a cesspool of attacks. Malware, ransomware, virii, tracking, exploited PDFs, ways to deliver device zero days over the web, browser zero days. All these things can lead to the security of your device and network being compromised, causing significant inconvenience, distress and loss for you. BrowserGap and the RBI methodology acknowledges that not all threats can be detected and neutralized (such as by virus scanners), in order to face that reality, RBI adopts a "isolation" posture towards threats, effectively isolating them in the remote machine and preventing them from reaching your device. With BrowserGap, in order to render the content of a web page, the only thing we send to your device form the remote page is pixels. So no HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc from your browsing is ever executed on your device. Cloud-based internet isolation is another name for this security practice and it is an emerging industry. Symantec recently acquired a company in this space, and Menlo Security was awarded[2] an agreement to build a CBII prototype for DISA, after a June 2018 request for RBI solutions that could eventually serve 60% of DoD's ~ 3 million users[0][1]. See more about RBI[1]. [0]: https://secureview.cloudbrowser.xyz/uploads/fileajqk.kkpgdih.pdf.html https://secureview.cloudbrowser.xyz/uploads/fileajqk.kkpgdih... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_isolation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_isolation [2]: https://www.menlosecurity.com/press-releases-blog/disa-cloud-based-internet-isolation-cbii-awarded-to-the-by-light-professional-it-services-llc-and-menlo-security-team https://www.menlosecurity.com/press-releases-blog/disa-cloud...
- oefrha 7y ago
  Genuinely curious: who’s your customer base? I mean, in theory the web is a cesspool of malware, but with reasonably good content blocking (I’m not even in the completely-disable-JS crowd) and conscious avoidance of shady sites, I managed to pretty easily stay clear of all attacks so far, at least over the past decade. Those way more paranoid than me still have the option of using local VMs/containers without too much compromise. Then the attacker really needs an exceptional exploit chain to escape all the way; it’s hard to imagine any group blowing such a valuable chain on a drive-by. So, why would anyone sacrifice the ability to interact with text, resolution, color accuracy, frame rate, etc. to reduce the minuscule chance of drive-by attacks (assuming otherwise reasonable opsec)? Extremely high value targets? But then, why would extremely high value targets trust a MITM? (Self-hosting apparently changes that to some extent.) Also, even if you run your browser in the cloud, that browser could still be hacked and leak sensitive information or actively modify traffic, no? So this isn’t even bulletproof for high value targets.
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    I'll tell you the value of this software. I can build software for non prod environments and allow my developers/testers access. for instance, with wordpress, domains are hardcoded into the database leaving you with risky sed commands against mysqldumps. With this I can launch wordpress into its own environment where www.foobar.com resolves but I can run all dev code there. I currently use a proxy and have instructions on how to use FoxyProxy to access each env's environment. This will provide for a much nicer UX where you simply click a link and you're brought to a virtual tab in that env. I'm sure some things will break, so the proxy is a backup, but for 90% of our work I think this is amazing! Solves any app problem where you have the same hostname per environment
    - oefrha 7y ago
      Have you tried using this? When I said > sacrifice the ability to interact with text, resolution, color accuracy, frame rate, etc. it’s very much an understatement... Pretty sure your devs/testers won’t appreciate the experience. Frontend devs in particular can’t possibly work with this. I fail to see why it’s hard for you to spin up (possibly gated) dev/staging instances; certainly much easier and much less resource intensive than something like this. Anyway, your use case only makes sense when the code can be self-hosted, but apparently this product / product category has customers before the source is opened up, and that’s what I’m curious about.
- jadbox 7y ago
  Question: why have the protocol based on pixels when you could use vanilla css and html? Like SSR, you could render the page with js remotely and capture the live html/css render to display. Of course, this process would be tricky as you'd also have to look for iframes and also generate bake out its render too. While much more complex, it would be far more efficient than sending back a pixel video stream.
  - slowenough 7y ago
    It's too complicated. The complexity in the code leads to more opportunities for bugs and exploits and more maintenance cost. Also it breaks the isolation model since you can do all sorts of crazy exploits just with HTML and CSS (animation event listeners for XSS etc). I investigated this path after PoCing the original (you can see the code in a directory plugins/appminifier and public/voodoo/src/plugins/appminifer, I think) but there's all sorts of interaction issues that arise when you attempt to filter the HTML in this way. Efficient in terms of what? Bandwidth, from a certain point of view but you lose the "source of absolute truth" that a screenshot is, and at the cost of interaction quirks. Also, not necessarily CPU efficient, as you have to do a lot of bookkeeping to transmit events to the right places and keep the local tree in sync with the remote tree. The main reason I avoided it was the security holes introduced by breaking the strict isolation model of pixels, and the complexity. You're welcome to fork and improve on the work begun in appminifier! If you go down that path, just know, there be dragons, and good luck!
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    The entire point of this project is to bypass the browser rendering engine locally and risk exposing all of its bugs, zero days, vulnerabilities, tracking etc. If you would be just copying HTML, that would give a regular old proxy server. This project is about security, not just hiding the ip address. > it would be far more efficient than sending back a pixel video stream Yes it would also deliver back exactly all the vulnerabilities to you that this project was specifically made for protecting against... Are you sure you have read its description? The whole point is to do dumb pixels that can't be exploited.
    - 7y ago
xendipity 7y ago
Wow, that's awesome! Seems like it opens a lot of powerful possibilities. I am a pretty technical person but also didn't know (and couldn't find) info on what RBI is and how it can be used - would love to see this information highlighted on GH and the website.
- slowenough 7y ago
  Thanks, I will add that to the GitHub. What really excites me about this is the ability to deliver a secure "workflow automation" solution to people over any device.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

slowenough 7y ago

And, if you're interested, read on for more detail. It works by providing a thin client over the web that you connect your regular browser to. The thin client provides an interface to a remote browser that you interact with the browser the public internet. This is significant because the internet is a cesspool of attacks. Malware, ransomware, virii, tracking, exploited PDFs, ways to deliver device zero days over the web, browser zero days. All these things can lead to the security of your device and network being compromised, causing significant inconvenience, distress and loss for you. BrowserGap and the RBI methodology acknowledges that not all threats can be detected and neutralized (such as by virus scanners), in order to face that reality, RBI adopts a "isolation" posture towards threats, effectively isolating them in the remote machine and preventing them from reaching your device. With BrowserGap, in order to render the content of a web page, the only thing we send to your device form the remote page is pixels. So no HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc from your browsing is ever executed on your device. Cloud-based internet isolation is another name for this security practice and it is an emerging industry. Symantec recently acquired a company in this space, and Menlo Security was awarded[2] an agreement to build a CBII prototype for DISA, after a June 2018 request for RBI solutions that could eventually serve 60% of DoD's ~ 3 million users[0][1]. See more about RBI[1]. [0]: https://secureview.cloudbrowser.xyz/uploads/fileajqk.kkpgdih.pdf.html https://secureview.cloudbrowser.xyz/uploads/fileajqk.kkpgdih... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_isolation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_isolation [2]: https://www.menlosecurity.com/press-releases-blog/disa-cloud-based-internet-isolation-cbii-awarded-to-the-by-light-professional-it-services-llc-and-menlo-security-team https://www.menlosecurity.com/press-releases-blog/disa-cloud...

oefrha 7y ago
Genuinely curious: who’s your customer base? I mean, in theory the web is a cesspool of malware, but with reasonably good content blocking (I’m not even in the completely-disable-JS crowd) and conscious avoidance of shady sites, I managed to pretty easily stay clear of all attacks so far, at least over the past decade. Those way more paranoid than me still have the option of using local VMs/containers without too much compromise. Then the attacker really needs an exceptional exploit chain to escape all the way; it’s hard to imagine any group blowing such a valuable chain on a drive-by. So, why would anyone sacrifice the ability to interact with text, resolution, color accuracy, frame rate, etc. to reduce the minuscule chance of drive-by attacks (assuming otherwise reasonable opsec)? Extremely high value targets? But then, why would extremely high value targets trust a MITM? (Self-hosting apparently changes that to some extent.) Also, even if you run your browser in the cloud, that browser could still be hacked and leak sensitive information or actively modify traffic, no? So this isn’t even bulletproof for high value targets.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  I'll tell you the value of this software. I can build software for non prod environments and allow my developers/testers access. for instance, with wordpress, domains are hardcoded into the database leaving you with risky sed commands against mysqldumps. With this I can launch wordpress into its own environment where www.foobar.com resolves but I can run all dev code there. I currently use a proxy and have instructions on how to use FoxyProxy to access each env's environment. This will provide for a much nicer UX where you simply click a link and you're brought to a virtual tab in that env. I'm sure some things will break, so the proxy is a backup, but for 90% of our work I think this is amazing! Solves any app problem where you have the same hostname per environment
  - oefrha 7y ago
    Have you tried using this? When I said > sacrifice the ability to interact with text, resolution, color accuracy, frame rate, etc. it’s very much an understatement... Pretty sure your devs/testers won’t appreciate the experience. Frontend devs in particular can’t possibly work with this. I fail to see why it’s hard for you to spin up (possibly gated) dev/staging instances; certainly much easier and much less resource intensive than something like this. Anyway, your use case only makes sense when the code can be self-hosted, but apparently this product / product category has customers before the source is opened up, and that’s what I’m curious about.
jadbox 7y ago
Question: why have the protocol based on pixels when you could use vanilla css and html? Like SSR, you could render the page with js remotely and capture the live html/css render to display. Of course, this process would be tricky as you'd also have to look for iframes and also generate bake out its render too. While much more complex, it would be far more efficient than sending back a pixel video stream.
- slowenough 7y ago
  It's too complicated. The complexity in the code leads to more opportunities for bugs and exploits and more maintenance cost. Also it breaks the isolation model since you can do all sorts of crazy exploits just with HTML and CSS (animation event listeners for XSS etc). I investigated this path after PoCing the original (you can see the code in a directory plugins/appminifier and public/voodoo/src/plugins/appminifer, I think) but there's all sorts of interaction issues that arise when you attempt to filter the HTML in this way. Efficient in terms of what? Bandwidth, from a certain point of view but you lose the "source of absolute truth" that a screenshot is, and at the cost of interaction quirks. Also, not necessarily CPU efficient, as you have to do a lot of bookkeeping to transmit events to the right places and keep the local tree in sync with the remote tree. The main reason I avoided it was the security holes introduced by breaking the strict isolation model of pixels, and the complexity. You're welcome to fork and improve on the work begun in appminifier! If you go down that path, just know, there be dragons, and good luck!
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  The entire point of this project is to bypass the browser rendering engine locally and risk exposing all of its bugs, zero days, vulnerabilities, tracking etc. If you would be just copying HTML, that would give a regular old proxy server. This project is about security, not just hiding the ip address. > it would be far more efficient than sending back a pixel video stream Yes it would also deliver back exactly all the vulnerabilities to you that this project was specifically made for protecting against... Are you sure you have read its description? The whole point is to do dumb pixels that can't be exploited.
  - 7y ago

xendipity 7y ago

Wow, that's awesome! Seems like it opens a lot of powerful possibilities. I am a pretty technical person but also didn't know (and couldn't find) info on what RBI is and how it can be used - would love to see this information highlighted on GH and the website.

slowenough 7y ago
Thanks, I will add that to the GitHub. What really excites me about this is the ability to deliver a secure "workflow automation" solution to people over any device.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]