Special Topics - Security


Password Protection

Passwords are like keys to your personal home online. You should do everything you can prevent people from gaining access to your password. You can also further secure your accounts by using additional authentication methods. Read more about password protection on Wikipedia.

ApPHP Framework provides you few ways to protect passwords for system users:
Here the example of password settings for your application defined in config/main.php file: 
// md5, sha1, sha256, whirlpool, etc
'password' => array(
    'encryption' => true,
    'encryptAlgorithm' => 'sha256',
    'encryptSalt' => true,
    'hashKey' => 'your unique hash key here...',    
),


Cross-Site Request Forgery Prevention

CSRF (also known as a one-click attack or session riding) or XSRF is a type of malicious exploit of a website whereby unauthorized commands are transmitted from a user that the website trusts. When a user visits a malicious website, a hidden request is sent in his name to a remote server for execution of a certain action (most often requests are sent to popular email services or social networks, where user is most likely to be registered and authorized). Read more about CSRF on Wikipedia.

Generally Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack occurs when a malicious website causes your web browser to execute a un-wanted action on a site you trust it. For example, such web site has a special page that contains an image whose src attribute points to a Back-End My Account page: http://site.example/myAccount?changeEmail=yes&to=newEmail. If a user who has a login cookie for this site visits this malicous page, the action of changing email will be executed. So, in other words... CSRF exploits the trust that a site has for a particular user.

To prevent CSRF attacks, it is important to use the the rule where GET requests should only be allowed to retrieve data rather than modify any data on the server. And for POST requests, they should include some random value which can be recognized by the server to ensure the form is submitted from and the result is sent back to the same origin.

ApPHP Framework implements a CSRF prevention scheme to help defeat POST-based attacks. It is based on generating a random value in a session or cookie and comparing this value with the value submitted via the POST request. By default, the CSRF prevention is disabled. To enable it, configure the CHttpRequest framework component as follows: 
private $_csrfValidation = true;
or define in your application config/main.php file as follows: 
// Validations
// Define array of 'excluded' controllers, ex.: array('PaymentProviders', 'Checkout')
// Token type: 'session', 'cookie' or 'multipages'
'validation' => array(
    'csrf' => array('enable' => true, 'exclude' => array('PaymentProviders'), 'tokenType' => 'multipages'),
),
AJAX. If you are utilizing JavaScript file in your application, then parameter APPHP_CSRF_TOKEN:token_value must be added to all your POST requests. It's automatically added to your FORM, when you use following in your code: 
CHtml::openForm('WebForms/submit', 'post', array('name'=>'form-contact'));
For the cases when you work with controller that doesn't create token in form, but processes it anyway, you may create token explicitly. Below the example for such definition. 
public function insertAction()
{
    Website::prepareBackendAction('insert', 'news', 'news/manage');

    $cRequest = A::app()->getRequest();
    $cRequest->getCsrfTokenValue();
    ...
}


Cross-Site Scripting Prevention

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications. XSS enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy. Read more about XSS on Wikipedia.
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Brute-Force Attacks Prevention

In cryptography, a brute-force attack, or exhaustive key search, is a cryptanalytic attack that can, in theory, be used against any encrypted data (except for data encrypted in an information-theoretically secure manner). Such an attack might be utilized when it is not possible to take advantage of other weaknesses in an encryption system (if any exist) that would make the task easier. It consists of systematically checking all possible keys or passwords until the correct one is found. In the worst case, this would involve traversing the entire search space. Read more about Brute-Force Attacks on Wikipedia.

To prevent Brute-Force attacks, it is important to delay access to the for some time, if we see that someone tries to login and search for username andf password. One simple technique that blocks access to login page for defined time could make a search algorithm not effective.

By default, the Brute-Force prevention is disabled. To enable it, or define in your application config/main.php file as follows: 
// Validation
'validation' => array(
    'bruteforce' => array('enable' => true, 'badLogins' => 5, 'redirectDelay' => 3),
),
where 'badLogins' means a number of wrong logis after prevention is turned on and 'redirectDelay' is the time is seconds, a while user is unable to acess the login page.

This feature must be released on application level, it is already embedded into Directy CMF.


Session Cookies Modifying Prevention

To prevent session cookies modifying by user (for restoring old session, for example) you have to store session ID in database (or in other custom storage). You may find more information about this in Session Custom Storage section.