Critical vulnerability in Web 2.0

Fortify Software announced that its Security Research Group has documented the first major vulnerability associated specifically with Web 2.0 and AJAX-style software. Termed JavaScript Hijacking, the vulnerability allows an attacker to steal critical data by emulating unsuspecting users. To combat this issue, Fortify has released an in-depth security advisory that details this vulnerability, how enterprises can determine if they are vulnerable and how they can fix the issue. A copy of this advisory can be downloaded at www.fortify.com/advisory.

JavaScript Hijacking appears to be a ubiquitous problem. As part of Fortify’s work, the 12 most popular AJAX frameworks were analysed, including frameworks from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the open source community. Fortify determined that among them, only Direct Web Remoting (DWR) 2.0 implements mechanisms for preventing JavaScript Hijacking. The rest of the frameworks do not explicitly provide any protection and do not mention any security concerns in their documentations. Even if an application does not use any of the frameworks listed above, it may be vulnerable if it contains AJAX components that use JavaScript as a data transfer format for sensitive data.