Browser security is a topic that spans a wide range of subjects. This isn’t surprising given the number of exploit techniques that rely on webpages as a primary delivery channel in their attacks. Successful XSS, CSRF, SQL injection (via web app), and plug-in-based attacks all take advantage of the environment provided by the web browser. Despite the importance of the browser in the chain of security, information on exactly how it goes about managing javascript across domains and determining when to show the “save as” download dialog can be overlooked. However, this is an area where attackers may concentrate their efforts to hedge out new exploits based on a weakness in browser security. The Browser Security Handbook, released in 2008,[…]
Category: Tutorial Tuesday
Each Tuesday, Security Musings features a topic to help educate our readers about security.
A while ago, I covered clickjacking, and now, we have “Strokejacking”. So what is strokejacking (other than a badly named attack that makes my inner middle schooler giggle)?
As some of you know, a lot of my background is in the world of Public Key Infrastructure. I’ve been involved in every phase of PKI, including developing certification authority and ASN.1/DER encoding/decoding software, developing automated registration authority components, creating certificate policies and certification practices statements, as well as designing and rolling out production PKIs for large organizations. Increasingly, organizations are turning to the use of Active Directory Certificate Services, otherwise known as Microsoft Certificate Services. The reasons are many: it’s included with the purchase of your Windows Server product, it’s easy to configure and use, and did I mention it doesn’t cost any (additional) money? The Microsoft product is a fairly good one and provides for a lot of[…]
Let’s face it. There are a lot of broken web apps and software out there. These web apps and software can oftentimes lead to major security holes being opened up due to their vulnerabilities. You don’t want to be the guy/girl responsible for the next major security breach just because you forgot to sanitize some input, or check that your sessions were secure. I would love to provide you a great tutorial on how to avoid many of the hardships that developers face, especially in security these days, but I don’t think I could do it better than the people over at the OWASP WebGoat project. It’s a web application that purposefully has many vulnerabilities right out in the open.[…]
Message Authentication Codes (MACs) are special pieces of data used to prove the authenticity and integrity of a message– to show that the message originated from a certain source and that it has not been modified. Consider a scenario in which Alice wants to send Bob an email. Upon receiving the email, Bob would like to be fairly certain that Alice was indeed the author and that the letter hasn’t been changed. When creating her email, Alice needs to have some technique that satisfies Bob’s concerns. First, she appends a secret word to the very end of the message. This secret word is only known by Alice and Bob. Next, she creates a unique “footprint” of her email by running[…]
FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards, and is “run” by NIST. It is a set of standards that dictates how information is stored, processed, and managed in the federal government. It’s also leaked into the commercial sector through government contractors and the concept of “If it’s good enough for the government…” Almost all of the FIPS standards are relevant to security. Ever hear of FIPS 197? It’s AES. A list of all FIPS documents is available through NIST, and if you’ve worked in information security, you’ve likely heard of at least 3-4 of them. The one I hear most often is FIPS 140-2. This is the standard for cryptographic implementation. An entire industry has grown up among independent testing[…]