New URI Browser Flaws Worse Than First Thought

narramissic writes "URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) bugs have become a hot topic over the past month, since researcher Thor Larholm showed how a browser could be tricked into sending malformed data to Firefox. Now, security researchers Billy Rios and Nathan McFeters say they've discovered a number of ways attackers could misuse the URI protocol handler technology to steal data from a victim's computer. 'It is possible through the URI to actually steal content form the user's machine and upload that content to a remote server of the attacker's choice,' said McFetters, a senior security advisor for Ernst & Young Global Ltd. 'This is all through functionality that the application provides.'"

Comments

Re:Web 2.0 developers have betrayed us all

[Phroggy]

And this is the end result of their hubris.

AJAX is a hack sat on top of a 15 year legacy of hacks, and ultimately serves no purpose other than giving the 'delicious generation' something to drool at. I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but... you're a fool. This has nothing to do with AJAX or Web 2.0, this has to do with exploiting security holes that have probably been around for over a decade. But more than that: yes, AJAX is useful. When used properly, it can allow you to build a web site that is more powerful and easy-to-use than anything you could do without AJAX. Slashdot's new AJAX-based comment system is definitely an improvement, for example.

FTA:

[tygerstripes]

By using these custom URI protocol names, software developers are trying to make lives easier for their customers.

The article also states that this is a "hacker's dream and a programmer's nightmare".

When a similar problem kicked off with the firefox:// protocol in IE all anyone could say was "Why the hell would anyone use this?" The answer seemed to be along the lines of "Nobody does - it was a stupid thing to include in the first place."

Sounds like the same problem to me - and unnecessary and unsuitable solution to a non-existent problem causing far worse problems. As the proverb goes: if it ain't broke, don't start shoe-horning new and unsecured protocol-handling into the registry.