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Yahoo Services May Need Some Patching
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-06-23
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An obscure security website has published a lengthy list of vulnerabilities in assorted Yahoo services like Yahoo Mail Beta and the Calendar service.
 | | Yahoo Services May Need Some Patching |  |
Rajesh Sethumadhavan has claimed multiple vulnerabilities exist in some of Yahoo's services. These issues could allow some form of exploitation by a malicious user.
"Various Yahoo! services are vulnerable to authentication bypass, session binding, weak cookie encoding, cross-site scripting file inclusion and URL redirection vulnerabilities, which is caused due to improper validation of user-supplied inputs," the advisory read.
Cookie files come in for particular scrutiny. Sethumadhavan displayed a screenshot where a URL constructed using cookies could gain access to an account and bypass Yahoo's authentication process completely.
Another possible problem listed holds that the session URL created for a login can be used on multiple computers to access a service. Enough of those logins can lead to a session binding vulnerability.
Cookies figure again in another issue cited in the advisory. Sethumadhavan thinks Yahoo's cookie implementation is too weak, and decoding the variables in a cookie string can be accomplished easily. That could lead to a third party learning enough about the user to possibly use Yahoo's Forgot Password tool and get that password.
Cross-site scripting rears its head in services like Yahoo Mail, Calendar, and even its Flash ads. The advisory said these flaws are due to improper sanitization of user-supplied inputs passed to certain variables.
Yahoo Mail Beta's HTTP Header apparently does not sanitize inputs passed to any of its values. A successful exploit of the cross-site scripting vulnerability could allow execution of arbitrary code in a user's browser session and steal their cookie-based authentication credentials, the advisory said.
A URL redirection flaw could facilitate a phishing attack. Sethumadhavan wrote that parameters for Yahoo Search like web, images, and video among many others were vulnerable due to Yahoo not filtering "incoming untrusted data" before delivering content to the browser.
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Tag: Yahoo
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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