Official Vatican web site Cross Site Scripting**********************************************
Time Line Vulnerability************************
No one has responded to multiple security advisories sent to Vatican
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Title: Official Vatican web site Cross Site Scripting
Vendor: http://vatican.va
Author:Juan Carlos García @secnight |||| asap-sec.com


Cross Site Scripting********************
Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications.
XSS enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users. 
A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy.
Cross-site scripting carried out on websites accounted for roughly 84% of all security vulnerabilities documented by Symantec as of 2007.
Their effect may range from a petty nuisance to a significant security risk, depending on the sensitivity of the data handled by the vulnerable site and the nature of any security mitigation implemented by the site's owner.

====Proof Of Concept====
     
http://www.vatican.va/redemptoris_mater/flash/index.html?lingua=it%22----%3E%3E%27%27%3E%3Cscript%3Ealert%28%22Merry%20Christmas%20and%20Happy%20New%20Year%20secnight%22%29%3C/script%3E

SOLUTION How to fix this vulnerability***************************************
==Contextual output encoding/escaping of string input==
The primary defense mechanism to stop XSS is contextual output encoding/escaping. 
There are several different escaping schemes that must be used depending on where the untrusted string needs to be placed within an HTML document including HTML entity encoding, JavaScript escaping, CSS escaping, and URL (or percent) encoding.
Most web applications that do not need to accept rich data can use escaping to largely eliminate the risk of XSS in a fairly straightforward manner.
It is worth noting that although it is widely recommended, simply performing HTML entity encoding on the five XML significant characters is not always sufficient to prevent many forms of XSS. Encoding can be tricky, and the use of a security encoding library is highly recommended.
Security encoding libraries and features in web application frameworks include:
OWASP ESAPI (Java)
ValidateRequest (ASP.NET)
AntiSamy (Java, ASP.NET)
strip_tags, sanitize (Ruby on Rails)
Django template escaping (Python Django)
Coverity Security Library (Java)
xss validator (Node.js)
strip_tags (PHP)


CREDITS-------------------------
This vulnerability has been discoveredby Juan Carlos García(@secnight) 
asap-sec.com

LEGAL NOTICES-------------------------
The Author accepts no responsibility for any damagecaused by the use or misuse of this information.