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Difference between revisions of "Testing for Captcha (OWASP-AT-012)"
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| − | === WARNING: CAPTCHA protection is | + | === WARNING: CAPTCHA protection is an ineffective security mechanism and should be perceived as a "rate limiting" protection only! === |
Most current used CAPTCHA images can be easily cracked in a fully automated way using many commercial or opensource services. Commercial services are usually very cheap and provide a simple API for most programming languages. | Most current used CAPTCHA images can be easily cracked in a fully automated way using many commercial or opensource services. Commercial services are usually very cheap and provide a simple API for most programming languages. | ||
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Solved: Sun Nov 17 20:03:23 2013 <br/> | Solved: Sun Nov 17 20:03:23 2013 <br/> | ||
'''Text: 270 35524452''' <br/> | '''Text: 270 35524452''' <br/> | ||
| + | Most CAPTCHA images can be cracked in 1-15 seconds, therefore CAPTCHA should be perceived as a rate limiting protection only which stops the attacker for a limited amount of time. | ||
== Brief Summary == | == Brief Summary == | ||
Revision as of 00:36, 18 November 2013
This article is part of the new OWASP Testing Guide v4.
Back to the OWASP Testing Guide v4 ToC: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Testing_Guide_v4_Table_of_Contents Back to the OWASP Testing Guide Project: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Testing_Project
WARNING: CAPTCHA protection is an ineffective security mechanism and should be perceived as a "rate limiting" protection only!
Most current used CAPTCHA images can be easily cracked in a fully automated way using many commercial or opensource services. Commercial services are usually very cheap and provide a simple API for most programming languages.
It is not recommended to use CAPTCHA protection for security-critical applications, in this case it is more suitable to use SMS text messages or OTP tokens instead.
Example of Google reCAPTCHA cracked in 7 seconds by commercial automated cracking service:
Price: US¢1.390
Uploaded: Sun Nov 17 20:03:13 2013
Solved: Sun Nov 17 20:03:23 2013
Text: 270 35524452
Most CAPTCHA images can be cracked in 1-15 seconds, therefore CAPTCHA should be perceived as a rate limiting protection only which stops the attacker for a limited amount of time.
Brief Summary
CAPTCHA ("Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge-response test used by many web applications to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer.
Description of the Issue
Despite above-described CAPTCHA weaknesses, it can be still used against:
- simple enumeration attacks (login, registration or password reset forms are often vulnerable to enumeration attacks - without CAPTCHA the attacker can gain valid usernames, phone numbers or any other sensitive information in a short time)
- automated sending of many GET/POST requests in a short time where it is undesirable (e.g., SMS/MMS/email flooding), CAPTCHA provides a rate limiting function
- automated creation/using of the account that should be used only by humans (e.g., creating webmail accounts, stop spamming)
- automated posting to blogs, forums and wikis, whether as a result of commercial promotion, or harassment and vandalism
- any automated attacks that massively gain or misuse sensitive information from the application
Black Box testing and example
Testing for Topic X vulnerabilities:
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Result Expected:
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References
Whitepapers
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Tools
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