ZK Developer's Reference/Security Tips/OWASP Top 10 Security Concerns In 2013

What is the OWASP Top 10?

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a worldwide not-for-profit charitable organization focused on improving the security of software. The OWASP Top 10 is a powerful awareness document for web application security that presents a list of the 10 most critical web application security risks. The most recent edition of this document was published in 2013.

OWASP Top 10 in 2013

In the subsections that follow, the top 10 security risks are compiled from OWASP site in a much condensed form. Interested parties are encouraged to visit OWASP to see this document in full, or other abundant web resources for more information about each security risk. Depending on the nature of vulnerability, a front-end framework such as ZK is not the source of weaknesses that need to be strengthened. Application developers need to understand the vulnerabilities leading to the possible exploits attackers may choose to target your system. With that knowledge, software authors can take preventative measures to mitigate these threats.

Injection

Injection flaws occur when an application sends untrusted data to an interpreter. For example, if the application uses untrusted data in the construction of a SQL command, then an attacker can send specially designed text strings that exploit the syntax of the SQL language to change the meaning of the original query.

ZK has no assumption about any 3rd party technology, and cannot cover their required escaping syntax. This security risk needs to be addressed during application development where untrusted data were utilized in conjunction with an interpreter. For example, to prevent SQL injection, user data should not be used to construct SQL command directly; instead, parameterized queries should be used.

Broken Authentication and Session Management

Developers frequently build custom authentication and session management schemes, but building these correctly is hard. As a result, these custom schemes frequently have flaws in areas such as logout, password management, timeouts, remember me, secret question, account update, etc. Finding such flaws can sometimes be difficult, as each implementation is unique.

Since ZK does not provide any login mechanism, it is up to developers to choose and secure user authentication management mechanism on their own.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross-Site Scripting occurs when an application includes user supplied data in a page sent to the browser without property validating or escaping that content.

Please see our tips on how to deal with this security issue in ZK.

Insecure Direct Object References

Applications frequently use the actual name or key of an object when generating pages. Applications does not always verify the user is authorized for the target object. This results in an insecure direct object reference flaw. For example, if an application uses request parameter to identity the account, an attacker, who is an authorized system user, can change the parameter value to access another account he is not authorized to access.

Since ZK represents its internal components by string id's to the client-side, it cannot prevent improper disclosure of system resources. However, disabled/invisible components can be additionally secured by blocking their requests (see this document).

Security Misconfiguration

Security misconfiguration can happen at any level of an application stack, including the platform, web server, application server, database, framework, and custom code. Developers and system administrators need to work together to ensure that the entire stack is configured properly.

Sensitive Data Exposure

The most common flaw is simply not encrypting sensitive data. When cryptology is employed, weak key generation and management, and weak algorithm usage is common, particularly weak password hashing techniques.

Developers have full control over which data is displayed in a zul page, and must avoid exposing sensitive data.

Missing Function Level Access Control

Applications do not always protect application functions properly. Sometimes, function level protections is managed via configuration, and the system is misconfigured. Sometimes, developers must include the proper code checks, and they forget.

Since ZK is programmed in Java language, developers have full control over the availability of backend service functions.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

CSRF takes advantage the fact that most web apps allow attackers to predict all the details of a particular action.

Because browsers send credentials like session cookies automatically, attackers can create malicious web pages which generate forged requests that are indistinguishable from legitimate ones.

Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities

Virtually every application has these issues because most development teams don't focus on ensuring their components/libraries are up to date. In many cases, the developers don't even know all the components they are using, never mind their versions. Component dependencies make things even worse.

Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards

Applications frequently redirect users to other pages, or use internal forwards in a similar manner. Sometimes the target page is specified in an unvalidated parameter, allowing attackers to choose the destination page.