Sidebar Gadget Security: Inspect Your Gadget

Michael Howard has written up some guidance on how to develop secure Vista Sidebar Gadgets:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb498012.aspx

Take some time to check this out if you're writing a Sidebar Gadget that touches data from a remote source.

Review a Gadget for Security Bugs

As a first order analysis, the following should be carefully reviewed to make sure they are not introducing security bugs.

• Verify that all innerHtml constructs render only trusted or sanitized data.
  You can use the innerText property to add untrusted data into the DOM safely.
• Verify that all document.write method calls render only trusted or sanitized data.
  Again, use the innerText property to add untrusted data into the DOM safely.
• Verify that all calls into the Gadget object model or ActiveX controls instantiated in the Gadget pass validated data. As an example, be careful when calling System.Sidebar.Execute.
• Verify that all calls to eval() pass validated data.
• Verify that all ActiveX controls used by the Gadget are secure (no buffer overruns, integer overruns, and such).