Remove an injected analytics library from browser memory in Bigcommerce?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23270694

  •  09-07-2023
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Question

How can we remove this script injector system and clear functions from memory?

Briefing) Recently the malfeasants at Bigcommerce created an analytics injector (JS) under guise of "monitoring" that is locked in a global variable. They have pushed it to all their 50,000 front facing stores without consent from any OP's. This puts in 2 JS libraries and sets up (plain code) triggers for them to track customer, behavior, and store plans throwing data to their shared 3rd party analytics bay. The issue is that although they run the code, they do not own rights to put in 3rd party libraries like this across thousands of domains out of their realm. Does anyone have ideas on how we can kill this + remove from memory? Is this even legal for them to do?

1) The injector is found in the shared global %%GLOBAL_AdditionalScriptTags%% in the HTMLhead.html panel, which means it non-accessible. The AdditionalScriptTags is also dynamic, meaning it loads different JS helpers based on what page is being requested. Removing the variable is a no-go for that reason.

2) The injector uses various DSL variables PHP side to build out its settings. Here is what it looks like in <head> as I browse logged into our store as a customer. This is putting 2 lines for 2 separate libraries which I will define below (note certain tokens hidden as 1234)

(function(){
    window.analytics||(window.analytics=[]),window.analytics.methods=["debug","identify","track","trackLink","trackForm","trackClick","trackSubmit","page","pageview","ab","alias","ready","group","on","once","off","initialize"],window.analytics.factory=function(a){return function(){var b=Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);return b.unshift(a),window.analytics.push(b),window.analytics}};for(var i=0;i<window.analytics.methods.length;i++){var method=window.analytics.methods[i];window.analytics[method]=window.analytics.factory(method)}window.analytics.load=function(){var a=document.createElement("script");a.type="text/javascript",a.async=!0,a.src="http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/r6cb05f0157ab6c6a38c325c12cfb4eb064cc3d6f/app/assets/js/analytics.min.js";var b=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];b.parentNode.insertBefore(a,b)},window.analytics.SNIPPET_VERSION="2.0.8",window.analytics.load();

    // uncomment the following line to turn analytics.js debugging on
    // shows verbose events and other useful information
    // analytics.debug();

    var storeId = '123456',
        userId = '921';

    // initialize with Fornax and Segment.io
    var providers = {
        Fornax: {
            host: 'https://analytics.bigcommerce.com',
            cdn: 'http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/r6cb05f0157ab6c6a38c325c12cfb4eb064cc3d6f/app/assets/js/fornax.min.js',
            defaultEventProperties: {
                storeId: storeId
            }
        },
        'Segment.io': {
            apiKey: '1sbkkbifdq'
        }
    };

    var fornaxEnabled = false;
    var segmentIOEnabled = false;
    var isStorefront = true;

    if (!fornaxEnabled) {
        delete providers.Fornax;
    }

    if (!segmentIOEnabled || isStorefront) {
        delete providers['Segment.io'];
    }

    analytics.initialize(providers);


    // identify this user
    analytics.identify(
        userId || null,
        {"name":"Test Dude","email":"test@test.com","storeHash":"123456","storeId":123456,"namespace":"bc.customers","storeCountry":"United States","experiments":{"shopping.checkout.cart_to_paid":"legacy_ui","search.storefront.backend":"mysql"},"storefront_session_id":"6b546880d5c34eec4194b5825145ad60d312bdfe"}
    );
})();

3) The output libraries are found as 2 references in the <head> and as you see if you own/demo a BC store, are rather un-touchable:

<script type="text/javascript" async="" src="http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/r6cb05f0157ab6c6a38c325c12cfb4eb064cc3d6f/app/assets/js/fornax.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" async="" src="http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/r6cb05f0157ab6c6a38c325c12cfb4eb064cc3d6f/app/assets/js/analytics.min.js"></script>

How can we break the injector and these trackers and prevent them from loading? Is there a way to remove their functions from memory? Speaking on behalf of many thousands of OP's and segment.io here, we are all at our wits end with this.

Was it helpful?

Solution

I've been hacking away at this too and I found something that works well to disable most/all of it.

Before this line:

%%GLOBAL_AdditionalScriptTags%%

Use this code:

<script type="text/javascript">
        window.bcanalytics = function () {};
</script>

So you will end up with something like this:

%%GLOBAL_AdditionalScriptTags%%
<script type="text/javascript">
        window.bcanalytics = function () {};
</script>

The <script> tags from part 3 of your question will still load as those are always PREpended before the first non-commented out <script> tag, but most, if not all, the analytics functionality will break, including external calls, and even fornax.js won't load. Hope this helps.

OTHER TIPS

Per the question I linked, for you case to at least remove the scripts from Step 3 this is what you should do :

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest,
    content,
    doc,
    scripts;

xhr.open( "GET", document.URL, false );
xhr.send(null);
content = xhr.responseText;

doc = document.implementation.createHTMLDocument(""+(document.title || ""));

doc.open();
doc.write(content);
doc.close();


scripts = doc.getElementsByTagName("script");
//Modify scripts as you please
[].forEach.call( scripts, function( script ) {
    if(script.getAttribute("src") == "http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/r6cb05f0157ab6c6a38c325c12cfb4eb064cc3d6f/app/assets/js/fornax.min.js"
       || script.getAttribute("src") == "http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/r6cb05f0157ab6c6a38c325c12cfb4eb064cc3d6f/app/assets/js/analytics.min.js") {

        script.removeAttribute("src");
    }
});

//Doing this will activate all the modified scripts and the "old page" will be gone as the document is replaced
document.replaceChild( document.importNode(doc.documentElement, true), document.documentElement);

You must make sure that this is the first thing to run, otherwise the other scripts can and will be executed.

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