Vulnerabilities introduced by poor authentication practices (called broken authentication) can open an easy pathway for a threat actor to exploit. All security professionals highly recommend that users invest in a password manager to generate, store, and autofill passwords at the login prompt. Which password managers are the best?
Research password managers and identify one for your analysis.
Use the password manager and note its features, strengths, weakness, ease of use, and security.
Post your analysis (minimum of 200 words) of the relevant information you found.
Given your analysis, give it a grade (A-F) and your recommendations.
Explain why such a grade was assigned.
Broken Authentication and Session Management: These issues involve improper implementation of functions related to user identity and session maintenance.
Examples:
Weak Password Policies: Allowing easily guessable passwords like "password123."
Improper Session Timeout: Sessions that never expire, allowing an attacker to indefinitely use a hijacked session ID.
Predictable Session IDs: Using sequential or easily guessable session tokens, allowing an attacker to bypass authentication by predicting a valid ID.
Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR): This happens when an application exposes a direct reference to an internal implementation object, like a file or database key, and the application fails to verify that the user is authorized to access the object.
Example: A user changes a URL parameter from ?user_id=101 to ?user_id=102 and gains access to another user's account details.
Sample Answer
Web application vulnerabilities pose significant risks, allowing unauthorized access, data theft, or system disruption. A multi-faceted approach combining different scanning and analysis methods is essential for comprehensive security.
Common Web Application Vulnerabilities
Web application vulnerabilities stem from design flaws, coding errors, or misconfigurations. The following are some of the most critical and common examples:
Injection Flaws (e.g., SQL Injection, OS Command Injection): These occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query.
Example (SQLi): An attacker enters a malicious string like ' OR '1'='1 into a login form's username field. If the application doesn't properly sanitize the input, this can bypass the login check, as the SQL query's WHERE clause evaluates to true.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): This allows attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users.