The Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security (1TS) initiative has announced a grant to the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) to support continued development of the open-source WEBCAT tool, with the amount undisclosed. According to Foresight News, the funding will also help extend the protection mechanism to Ethereum wallets and applications.

WEBCAT is designed to address a front-end verification gap. HTTPS can confirm that a connection is secure, but it cannot prove that a website is serving the same code published by its developer. Tampered front-end code could replace a payment address or prompt users to sign unintended content. Developers sign manifest files for each release, and a distributed verifiable registry maintains public records. Browser extensions periodically download and verify snapshots of that record, allowing validation to be completed locally. A Firefox extension currently in alpha blocks page loading and shows a warning when verification fails.

FPF said part of the reason for building WEBCAT is that future versions of its SecureDrop whistleblowing system will require verifiable browser code. The grant will fund development of a WEBCAT verification library for wallet integration, as well as research into support for Chromium browsers such as Chrome, independent security audits, and an Ethereum request for comments standard for wallet developers to follow. The verification library is intended to complement the Clear Signing feature previously introduced by 1TS.