By chaining various messaging APIs in browsers and browser extensions, I demonstrate how we can jump from web pages to “universal code execution”, breaking both Same Origin Policy and the browser sandbox. I provide two new vulnerability disclosures affecting millions of users as examples. In addition, I demonstrate how such vulnerabilities can be discovered at scale with a combination of large dataset queries and static code analysis.

A couple months ago, my colleague Winston Ho and I chained a series of unfortunate bugs into a zero-interaction local privilege escalation in Zscaler Client Connector. This was an interesting journey into Windows RPC caller validation and bypassing several checks, including Authenticode verification. Check out the original Medium blogpost for Winston’s own ZSATrayManager Arbitrary File Deletion (CVE-2023-41969)!

It’s always interesting to find edge cases in strong appsec programmes like Meta and Google that have generally solved entire bug classes like cross-site scripting because it highlights potential blind spots in appsec strategy. In particular, I’m still fascinated by the Clipboard API that seems to evade typical static analysis tools, like a stored XSS I found in Zoom Whiteboard. Here’s how I found similar bugs in Excalidraw (used in Messenger and other Meta assets) and Microsoft Whiteboard.

Have you ever wondered how display monitor software can change various settings like brightness over a simple display cable? As it turns out, this relies on a standard protocol that can lead to interesting vulnerabilities. Here’s how I found and exploited CVE-2023-5449 in dozens of HP display monitors.

The Offensive Security Exploitation Expert (OSEE) certification is a legendary apex achievement among OffSec’s offerings - unabashedly featuring a skull logo and grim reaper iconography in previous iterations. Here’s how I tackled it while busy at work.