Nt1330 Unit 3 Assignment 1

Words: 1576
Pages: 7

1. Sessions are used to keep track of a user when they are using a web application. Without sessions a user would have to identify themselves and probably authenticates, on every request. A session usually consist of hash values and a session id which are very hard to crack. If a hacker acquires a cookie from the session then they can use the web application as if they were that user. A hacker could obtain this cookie by sniffing the cookie in an insecure network. This means that a hacker can listen to all traffic on an unencrypted wireless LAN and grab your cookie. This could be stopped by forcing an SSL connection for your users. Another attack would be the replay attack. A replay attack is when a hacker receives credits, then buys something. Then taking the cookie from the first session and putting it in the browser. This restores their credit to its original value. To stop this you can use a nonce or a random value in the session. The nonce is valid only once and the server has to keep track of it in the session. It can get very complicated keeping track of all of them. The best solution is to not store this kind of data in the session but instead in a database. There is also …show more content…
Redirection is when the attacker forwards the user to a trap website. This happens by sending an unsuspicious link in an email to the users, injecting the link by XSS in the application, or putting the link into an external application. The link starts with the URL to the application, it is hidden in the redirect parameter. To stop this you can include only the expected parameters in the legacy action. Another way is to be redirected to the URL with the malicious code in it. To stop this you cannot allow the user to supply parts of the URL. File uploads allow the user to upload files named however they want. A hacker could use a malicious file name to overwrite any file on the server. Make sure file uploads do not overwrite important files and process media files