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Reviewing Code for Session Integrity issues
Introduction
How to locate the potentially vulnerable code
Session Tracking/Management Techniques
HTML Hidden Field
The HTML Hidden field could be used to perform session tracking. Upon each HTTP POST request the hidden field is passed to the server identifying the user. It would be in the form of
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="user"VALUE="User001928394857738000094857hfduekjkksowie039848jej393">
Server-side code is used to perfrom validation on the VALUE in order to ensure the used is valid. This approach can only be used for POST/Form requests.
URL Rewriting
URL rewriting approaches session tracking by appending a unique id pertaining to the user at the end of the URL.
<A HREF="/smackmenow.htm?user=User001928394857738000094857hfduekjkksowie039848jej393">Click Here</A>
Cookies
Cookies were invented by netscape as a way of keeping state when using the stateless protocol HTTP. Commonly used for maintaining state but must be careful not to store any sensitive information in a cookie.
Persistant Cookies
State information and cookies
Leading Practice Patterns for Session Management/Integrity
HTTPOnly Cookie: Prevents cookie access via client side script. Not all browsers support such a directive.
Related Articles
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Cookies_Database http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533046.aspx http://java.sun.com/j2ee/sdk_1.3/techdocs/api/javax/servlet/http/Cookie.html
