ASVS V3 Session Management

1. V3: Session Management Verification Requirements

1. 1. Control Objective

One of the core components of any web-based application is the mechanism by which it controls and maintains the state for a user interacting with it. This is referred to this as Session Management and is defined as the set of all controls governing state-full interaction between a user and the web-based application.

Ensure that a verified application satisfies the following high level session management requirements:

• Sessions are unique to each individual and cannot be guessed or shared
• Sessions are invalidated when no longer required and timed out during periods of inactivity.

1. 1. Security Verification Requirements

| # | Description | L1 | L2 | L3 | Since | | --- | --- | --- | --- | -- | -- |

| **3.2** | Verify that sessions are invalidated when the user logs out. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.3** | Verify that sessions timeout after a specified period of inactivity. | | | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.4** | Verify that sessions timeout after an administratively-configurable maximum time period regardless of activity (an absolute timeout). | | ✓ | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.5** | Verify that all pages that require authentication have easy and visible access to logout functionality. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.6** | Test that the session ID is never disclosed in URLs, error messages, or logs. This includes verifying that the application does not support URL rewriting of session cookies. | | | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.7** | Verify that all successful authentication and re-authentication generates a new session and session id. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.10** | Verify that only session ids generated by the application framework are recognised as active by the application. | | ✓ | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.11** | Test session IDs against criteria such as their randomness, uniqueness, resistance to statistical and cryptographic analysis and information leakage. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 1.0 | | **3.12** | Verify that session IDs stored in cookies are scoped using the 'path' attribute; and have the 'HttpOnly' and 'Secure' cookie flags enabled. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 3.0 | | **3.17** | Verify that the application tracks all active sessions. And allows users to terminate sessions selectively or globally from their account. | | ✓ | ✓ | 3.0 | | **3.18** | Verify for high value applications that the user is prompted with the option to terminate all other active sessions after a successful change password process. | | | ✓ | 3.1 | | **3.1** | TBA | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 1.0 |

1. 1. References

For more information, see also:

• [OWASP Testing Guide 4.0: Session Management Testing](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Testing_for_Session_Management)
• [OWASP Session Management Cheat Sheet](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Session_Management_Cheat_Sheet)