Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery

Study Notes

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

The primary target of a CSRF attack is to trick users into performing unintended actions on a web application they are authenticated to.
The objective of a CSRF attack is to execute unauthorized commands on a victim's behalf, often resulting in unauthorized transactions or data modifications.

Preventing CSRF Attacks

One method to help prevent CSRF attacks is to include a token in each request that is not easily predictable by an attacker, such as a token that is generated randomly for each user session.

Remote Code Execution

Remote Code Execution can be prevented by ensuring that all user input is validated and sanitized to prevent malicious code execution.
Additionally, using techniques such as input validation, output encoding, and secure coding practices can help prevent Remote Code Execution.

Temporary File Abuse

The risk associated with Temporary File Abuse is that an attacker can access sensitive information, such as encryption keys or passwords, which are stored in temporary files.
A potential risk related to unauthorized access to temporary files on a laptop/pc is data theft or tampering.

Session Hijacking

Session hijacking occurs when an attacker steals or obtains a user's session ID, allowing them to gain unauthorized access to the user's session.
Session hijacking can be prevented by using secure protocols, such as HTTPS, to encrypt session data, and by regenerating the session ID after a user logs in.

Password Cracking

Password cracking in the context of data security involves using various techniques, such as brute force or dictionary attacks, to guess or crack a user's password.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

XSS attacks can be prevented by validating and sanitizing user input, using output encoding, and implementing secure coding practices to prevent malicious script execution.
Additionally, using Content Security Policy (CSP) and HTTPOnly cookies can help prevent XSS attacks.

Description

Learn about attacking focus on state-changing requests and prevention methods, such as using REST anti-forgery tokens and ensuring same-site cookie attribute. Explore additional authentication measures for sensitive actions and the concept of Remote Code Execution.