Cross-Site Scripting flaws, as well as other injection flaws, are pretty well understood. We know how they work and how to mitigate them. One of the key factors in mitigation of these flaws is output encoding or escaping. For SQL, we escape by using parameters. For cross-site scripting we use context sensitive output encoding. In this post, I don’t want to focus on the how of output encoding for cross-site scripting. Rather, I want to focus on when in the pipeline it should be done. Over … [Read more...] about Properly Placing XSS Output Encoding
secure coding
Using the AWS disruption to your advantage
By now you have heard of the amazon issues that plagued many websites a few days ago. I want to talk about one key part of the issue that often gets overlooked. If you read through their message describing their service disruption (https://aws.amazon.com/message/41926/) you will notice a section where they discuss some changes to the tools they use to manage their systems. So let's take a step back for a moment. Amazon attributed the service disruption to basically a simple mistake … [Read more...] about Using the AWS disruption to your advantage
Insulin Pump Vulnerability – Take-aways
It was recently announced that there were a few vulnerabilities found with some insulin pumps that could allow a remote attacker to cause the pump to distribute more insulin than expected. There is a great write up of the situation here. When I say remote attack, keep in mind that in this scenario, it is someone that is within close proximity to the device. This is not an attack that can be performed via the Internet. This situation creates an excellent learning opportunity for anyone that … [Read more...] about Insulin Pump Vulnerability – Take-aways
Password Storage Overview
Start reading the news and you are bound to read about another data breach involving user credentials. Whether you get any details about how the passwords (that were stolen) were stored, we can assume that in many of these cases that they were not well protected. Maybe they were stored in clear text (no, it can't be true), or use weak hashes. Passwords hold the key to our access to most applications. What are you doing to help protect them? First, lets just start with recommending that the … [Read more...] about Password Storage Overview
Unsupported Browser Support
Ok, so the title is a bit counter-intuitive. I recently saw an article talking about the end of support for some of the Internet Explorer versions out there (http://www.computerworld.com/article/3018786/web-browsers/last-chance-to-upgrade-ie-or-switch-browsers-as-microsofts-mandate-looms.html) and got to thinking about the number of sites that still require supporting some of these older versions of browsers. This is typically more common in the big corporate enterprises, as they have the … [Read more...] about Unsupported Browser Support
Disabling Paste for Passwords?
Passwords, while a simple concept, are one of the most complex issues in security. A majority of user authenticated systems rely on a password to verify the end user. Over the years we have seen many different recommendations for strong passwords. I have talked about this subject many times. The complexity, while difficult to define, has gotten more difficult over time. At first, it was 8 characters with upper, lower case characters and a number or special character. The focus has … [Read more...] about Disabling Paste for Passwords?