Introduction

This article provides a simple model to follow when implementing a "forgot password" web application feature.

The Problem

There is no industry standard for implementing the "Forgot Password' featyre. The result is that users could be forced to jump through myriad hoops involving emails, special URLs, temporary passwords, personal security questions, and so on. In some applications you can recover your existing password. In others you have to reset it to a new value.

The recommendations presented for implementing "Forgot Password" are most appropriate for organizations that have a business relationship with users. Web applications that target the general public (social networking, free email sites, etc.) are fundamentally different and some concepts presented may not be feasible in those situations.

Steps

1) Gather Identity Data

2) Verify Security Questions

3) Send a Token Over a Side-Channel

4) Allow user to change password

V - T - E Cheat Sheets
Developer / Builder	3rd Party Javascript Management Access Control AJAX Security Cheat Sheet Authentication (ES) Bean Validation Cheat Sheet Choosing and Using Security Questions Clickjacking Defense Credential Stuffing Prevention Cheat Sheet Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Prevention Cryptographic Storage C-Based Toolchain Hardening CSS Security Deserialization DOM based XSS Prevention Forgot Password HTML5 Security HTTP Strict Transport Security Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet in Java JSON Web Token (JWT) Cheat Sheet for Java Input Validation Insecure Direct Object Reference Prevention JAAS Key Management LDAP Injection Prevention Logging Mass Assignment Cheat Sheet .NET Security OS Command Injection Defense Cheat Sheet OWASP Top Ten Password Storage Pinning Query Parameterization REST Security Ruby on Rails Session Management SAML Security SQL Injection Prevention Transaction Authorization Transport Layer Protection TLS Cipher String Configuration Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards User Privacy Protection Web Service Security XSS (Cross Site Scripting) Prevention XML External Entity (XXE) Prevention Cheat Sheet
Assessment / Breaker	Attack Surface Analysis REST Assessment Web Application Security Testing XML Security Cheat Sheet XSS Filter Evasion
Mobile	Android Testing IOS Developer Mobile Jailbreaking
OpSec / Defender	Virtual Patching Vulnerability Disclosure
Draft and Beta	Application Security Architecture Business Logic Security Content Security Policy Denial of Service Cheat Sheet Grails Secure Code Review IOS Application Security Testing PHP Security Regular Expression Security Cheatsheet Secure Coding Secure SDLC Threat Modeling
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Authors and Primary Editors

David Furgeson - David.Ferguson[at]fishnetsecurity.com
Jim Manico - jim[at]owasp.org

Forgot Password Cheat Sheet

Introduction

The Problem

Steps

1) Gather Identity Data

2) Verify Security Questions

3) Send a Token Over a Side-Channel

4) Allow user to change password

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Authors and Primary Editors

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