csrfreverse-engineeringkindle

Getting hold of Amazon Fiona (Kindle) CSRF token


Amazon has an administration page for content sent to your Kindle. This page uses an undocumented HTTP API that sends requests like this:

{
  "csrfToken":"gEABCzVR2QsRk3F2QVkLcdKuQzYCPcpGkFNte0SAAAAAJAAAAAFkUgW5yYXcAAAAA",
  "data":{"param":{"DeleteContent":{"asinDetails":{"3RSCWFGCUIZ3LD2EEROJUI6M5X63RAE2":{"category":"KindlePDoc"},"375SVWE22FINQY3FZNGIIDRBZISBGJTD":{"category":"KindlePDoc"},"4KMPV2CIWUACT4QHQPETLHCVTWEJIM4N":{"category":"KindlePDoc"}}}}}
}

I made a wrapper library for the previous API they used, but this time they have added CSRF tokens, making each session unique. That is a bit of a show stopper, and I was wondering how I can get hold of these tokens. I did not find it in the cookies. This is for use in a Chrome Extension, so issues like CORS is not an issue.


Solution

  • Actually, after manually going searching the Response tab of each request in the "XHR" and "Doc" tab, I was able to find out that this token is set in an inline script in the myx.html (main page):

    var csrfToken = "gPNABCIemSqEWBeXae3l1CqMPESRa4bXBq0W7rCIAAAAJAAAAAFkUlo1yYXcAAAAA";
    

    This means it is set on the window object, making it available for all there. I guess this means a Chrome extension would need to fetch this page and manually parse the html to retrieve this token. Sad, but doable, although highly fragile :-(