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Windows Vista includes the “Windows Sidebar”. This new feature allows users to display ‘gadgets’ on the sidebar and on the Windows desktop. Gadgets are small applications containing HTML, XML and JavaScript.

The National Rail Live Departure Board Sidebar gadget provides users with the ability to view real time train departure boards for all main railway stations in the UK. The gadget allows users to choose a “Start Station” and a “Destination Station” in order to provide them with the most up to date live departure information for their chosen trip. The gadget requests this information from a web server, which responds to the gadget with live departure board information for the user’s chosen rail journey.

An attacker capable of intercepting the web server response to the gadget request could modify that response such that a script was injected and then run on the user’s system. The injected script would run under the privileges of the currently logged in user, allowing the remote attacker to execute commands on the target system. An attacker successfully exploiting this vulnerability could execute arbitrary commands in the context of the current logged in user. (more…)

I have just arrived from Black Hat Europe 2008 in Amsterdam (this one, not this one). It has been a cool experience, not exactly what I expected but really interesting.

Briefings were held during the 27^th and 28^th of March, and the presentations are available for download. If you want to see what the chef recommends just keep reading…

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