As software developers author the code that makes up a web application, they need to embrace and practice a wide variety of secure coding techniques. All tiers of a web application, the user interface, the business logic, the controller, the database code and more – all need to be developed with security in mind. This can be a very difficult task and developers are often set up for failure.

Using a parameterized query makes sure that the SQL logic is defined first and locked. Then the user input is added to it where it is needed, but treated as a particular data type string, integer, etc. as whole. In a database operation with a parameterized query in the backend, an attacker has no way to manipulate the SQL logic, leading to no SQL injection and database compromise. Insecure software is undermining our financial, healthcare, defense, energy, and other critical infrastructure worldwide. As our digital, global infrastructure gets increasingly complex and interconnected, the difficulty of achieving application security increases exponentially.

Implement Digital Identity¶

Input validation is important because it restricts the user to submit data in a particular format only, no other format is acceptable. This is beneficial to an application, because a valid input cannot contain malicious data and can be further processed easily. This course provides conceptual knowledge of 10 Proactive Controls that must be adopted in every single software and application development project. Listed with respect to priority and importance, these ten controls are designed to augment the standards of application security. This course is a part of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) training courses designed Software Engineers, Cybersecurity Professionals, Network Security Engineers, and Ethical Hackers.

  • For any of these decisions, you have the ability to roll your own–managing your own registration of users and keeping track of their passwords or means of authentication.
  • Using a parameterized query makes sure that the SQL logic is defined first and locked.
  • To solve this problem, access control or authorization checks should always be centralized.

OWASP has a project named OWASP ESAPI, which allows users to handle data in a secure manner using industry tested libraries and security functions. The list goes on from injection attacks protection to authentication, secure cryptographic APIs, storing sensitive data, and so on. The OWASP Top 10 Proactive Controls is similar to the OWASP Top 10 but is focused on defensive techniques and controls as opposed to risks. Each technique or control in this document will map to one or more items in the risk based OWASP Top 10.

How to Use this Document¶

Observe in the above code that the session cookie JSESSIONID remains the same for pre- and post-login. This vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker who has physical access to the machine and notes the value of session cookie pre-authentication. https://remotemode.net/ The above code shows that here sensitive information (i.e. password) is stored in a salted MD5 format. If the database is compromised, then the attacker will have to find clear text for the hashed passwords, or else it will be of no use.

owasp proactive controls lessons

This changes the post-login session cookie value, and Session Fixation vulnerability cannot be exploited. Below is an example of an application that stores the user’s password in plaintext inside a MySQL database. Authentication is the process by which it is verified that someone is who they claim to be, or we can say it is the process of identifying individuals. Authentication is performed by entering username or password or any sensitive information.

OWASP Proactive Controls 2018

Most developers did not learn about secure coding or crypto in school. The languages and frameworks that developers use to build web applications are often lacking critical core controls or are insecure by default in some way. It is also very rare when organizations provide developers with prescriptive requirements that guide them down the path of secure software. And even when they do, there may be security flaws inherent in the requirements and designs. When it comes to software, developers are often set up to lose the security game. OWASP ProActive Controls is a document prepared for developers who are developing or are new to developing software/application with secure software development.

Blacklisting is invalidating an input by looking for specific things only. For example, specifying that a phone number should be of 10 digits with only numbers is whitelist. Searching input for A-Z and then saying it is valid or not is blacklisting, because we are invalidating using alphabet characters only. In the above case, if a user enters +890, then a blacklist will say it is valid because it does not contain A-Z. Whereas a whitelist will say it contains a character that is not a number, and only numbers are allowed, so it is invalid.

In this part of OWASP ProActive Controls, we discussed in depth how ProActive Controls 1-5 can be used in an application as a secure coding practice to safeguard it from well-known attacks. The controls discussed do not modify application development lifecycle, but ensure that application security is given the same priority as other tasks and can be carried out easily by developers. We encourage you to use the OWASP Proactive Controls to get your developers started with application security. We hope that the OWASP Proactive Controls is useful to your efforts in building secure software.

This OWASP project lists 10 controls that can help a developer implement secure coding and better security inside the application while it is being developed. Following these secure application development controls ensures that the key areas of the development cycle have secure coding along with traditional coding practices. Data encoding helps to protect a user from different types of attacks like injection and XSS. Cross Site Scripting (XSS) is the most popular and common vulnerability in Web applications of smallest to biggest vendors with a Web presence or in their products. Web applications take user input and use it for further processing and storing in the database when ever needed.

OWASP Proactive Control 3 — securing database access

It then leads to malicious code being executed by the browser on the client side. Stored XSS can be carried out in public forums to conduct mass user exploitation. Performing a simple SQLi attack in the username field will manipulate the SQL query, and an authentication bypass can take place. This cheatsheet will help users of the OWASP owasp top 10 proactive controls Proactive Controls identify which cheatsheets map to each proactive controls item. This mapping is based the OWASP Proactive Controls version 3.0 (2018). OWASP Top 10 Proactive Controls describes the most important control and control categories that every architect and developer should absolutely, 100% include in every project.

  • OWASP has a project named OWASP ESAPI, which allows users to handle data in a secure manner using industry tested libraries and security functions.
  • Authentication is performed by entering username or password or any sensitive information.
  • If proper output encoding has been implemented, then even if malicious input was sent, it will not be executed and will be shown as plain text on the client side.
  • Building a secure product begins with defining what are the security requirements we need to take into account.
  • This OWASP project lists 10 controls that can help a developer implement secure coding and better security inside the application while it is being developed.
  • For example, if a user logs out from his/her account, but he/she is redirected to some page, but session is not invalidated properly, a post-login page is opened without asking for re-authentication.
  • However, this document should be seen as a starting point rather than a comprehensive set of techniques and practices.