Security pundits have been warning about the dangers implicit with Web services for years. A good starting point for understanding the security issues related to Web services can be found at: http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid26_gci872720,00.html
Of course to really understand the security risks posed by Web services, you need to understand the basics of Web services. Enter an application I wrote called "Monkey Shell."
MonkeyShell is a simple open source Python application that uses extensible markup language remote procedure calls (XML-RPC) to execute commands through a remote system shell.
I kept the code terse (less than 100 lines total) so that it can be studied easily. It is similar to netcat except instead of "shell shoveling" data through a raw TCP connection, it wraps data in XML and transports it over HTTP.
MonkeyShell is freely available at: http://www.sharp-ideas.net/
Cheers, Abe Usher, CISSP
