43 research outputs found

    Analysing the Security of Google's implementation of OpenID Connect

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    Many millions of users routinely use their Google accounts to log in to relying party (RP) websites supporting the Google OpenID Connect service. OpenID Connect, a newly standardised single-sign-on protocol, builds an identity layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol, which has itself been widely adopted to support identity management services. It adds identity management functionality to the OAuth 2.0 system and allows an RP to obtain assurances regarding the authenticity of an end user. A number of authors have analysed the security of the OAuth 2.0 protocol, but whether OpenID Connect is secure in practice remains an open question. We report on a large-scale practical study of Google's implementation of OpenID Connect, involving forensic examination of 103 RP websites which support its use for sign-in. Our study reveals serious vulnerabilities of a number of types, all of which allow an attacker to log in to an RP website as a victim user. Further examination suggests that these vulnerabilities are caused by a combination of Google's design of its OpenID Connect service and RP developers making design decisions which sacrifice security for simplicity of implementation. We also give practical recommendations for both RPs and OPs to help improve the security of real world OpenID Connect systems

    Automated Security Testing for Identity Management of Large-scale Digital Infrastructures

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    Ensuring the security of an organization's digital assets against cyber threats is critical in today's technology-driven world. Regular security testing is one of the measures that can help assess the effectiveness of security controls, identify vulnerabilities, and strengthen the overall cybersecurity posture. Identity Management (IdM) protocols such as Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0, OpenID Connect, and OAuth 2.0 play a crucial role in protecting against identity theft, fraud, and security breaches. Also, following the Best Current Practices introduced by the standards to enhance the security of IdM protocols is essential to minimize the risk of unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security threats and to maintain compliance with regulatory requirements, and build trust with users and stakeholders. However, deploying these protocols can be challenging due to the complexity in designing, developing and implementing cryptographic mechanisms. The implementation of IdM protocols encounters three significant obstacles: fragmented security information, rapidly evolving threat environment, and the need for a controlled testing environment. Security testers must stay up-to-date with emerging threats and establish an appropriate testing infrastructure to guarantee the security and robustness of IdM implementations, while also minimizing the possibility of security incidents that could adversely affect operations. Automated security testing plays a crucial role in addressing security concerns, particularly as the intricate functional aspects of IdM solutions contribute to their complexity. It is essential to prioritize automation to bridge the cybersecurity skills gap among IT professionals. In this thesis, we propose Micro-Id-Gym (MIG), a framework that offers (i) an easy way to configure and reproduce the IdM production environment in a sandbox, allowing hands-on experiences with potentially impactful security tests that may winder availability of services and (ii) automatic security testing of IdM implementations together with suggestions for mitigations to avoid identified vulnerabilities. MIG provides a set of security testing tools for creating, executing, and analyzing security test cases through MIG-L, a declarative test specification language. We have evaluated the effectiveness of MIG by conducting experiments to assess the accuracy in supporting detection of relevant vulnerabilities in the implementation of IdM protocols. We utilized MIG to conduct security analyses across various corporate scenarios and projects, identifying vulnerabilities and responsibly disclosing them through bug bounty programs. Our findings were recognized by the providers, who awarded us both monetary compensation and public recognition. Overall, MIG can help organizations establish a robust and agile security testing strategy, supported by suitable infrastructure and testing procedures, that can ensure the security and resilience of their IdM implementations

    Resilient Risk based Adaptive Authentication and Authorization (RAD-AA) Framework

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    In recent cyber attacks, credential theft has emerged as one of the primary vectors of gaining entry into the system. Once attacker(s) have a foothold in the system, they use various techniques including token manipulation to elevate the privileges and access protected resources. This makes authentication and token based authorization a critical component for a secure and resilient cyber system. In this paper we discuss the design considerations for such a secure and resilient authentication and authorization framework capable of self-adapting based on the risk scores and trust profiles. We compare this design with the existing standards such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect and SAML 2.0. We then study popular threat models such as STRIDE and PASTA and summarize the resilience of the proposed architecture against common and relevant threat vectors. We call this framework as Resilient Risk based Adaptive Authentication and Authorization (RAD-AA). The proposed framework excessively increases the cost for an adversary to launch and sustain any cyber attack and provides much-needed strength to critical infrastructure. We also discuss the machine learning (ML) approach for the adaptive engine to accurately classify transactions and arrive at risk scores

    OAuthGuard:Protecting User Security and Privacy with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect

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    Millions of users routinely use Google to log in to websites supporting OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect; the security of OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect is therefore of critical importance. As revealed in previous studies, in practice RPs often implement OAuth 2.0 incorrectly, and so many real-world OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect systems are vulnerable to attack. However, users of such flawed systems are typically unaware of these issues, and so are at risk of attacks which could result in unauthorised access to the victim user's account at an RP. In order to address this threat, we have developed OAuthGuard, an OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect vulnerability scanner and protector, that works with RPs using Google OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect services. It protects user security and privacy even when RPs do not implement OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect correctly. We used OAuthGuard to survey the 1000 top-ranked websites supporting Google sign-in for the possible presence of five OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect security and privacy vulnerabilities, of which one has not previously been described in the literature. Of the 137 sites in our study that employ Google Sign-in, 69 were found to suffer from at least one serious vulnerability. OAuthGuard was able to protect user security and privacy for 56 of these 69 RPs, and for the other 13 was able to warn users that they were using an insecure implementation.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1801.0798

    WPSE: Fortifying Web Protocols via Browser-Side Security Monitoring

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    We present WPSE, a browser-side security monitor for web protocols designed to ensure compliance with the intended protocol flow, as well as confidentiality and integrity properties of messages. We formally prove that WPSE is expressive enough to protect web applications from a wide range of protocol implementation bugs and web attacks. We discuss concrete examples of attacks which can be prevented by WPSE on OAuth 2.0 and SAML 2.0, including a novel attack on the Google implementation of SAML 2.0 which we discovered by formalizing the protocol specification in WPSE. Moreover, we use WPSE to carry out an extensive experimental evaluation of OAuth 2.0 in the wild. Out of 90 tested websites, we identify security flaws in 55 websites (61.1%), including new critical vulnerabilities introduced by tracking libraries such as Facebook Pixel, all of which fixable by WPSE. Finally, we show that WPSE works flawlessly on 83 websites (92.2%), with the 7 compatibility issues being caused by custom implementations deviating from the OAuth 2.0 specification, one of which introducing a critical vulnerability

    PRIVACY ISSUES IN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS: USER BEHAVIORS AND THIRD-PARTY APPLICATIONS

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    In contemporary society, social networking websites has developed dramatically and became an indispensable component in our daily life. Since it can help create a more feature-rich online social community, third-party service has been widely adopted in online social networks (OSNs). Integrating these third-party sites and applications has not only extended business of both social network server and third party and but also promises to break down the garden walls of social-networking sites. While at the same time it dramatically raises concerns on privacy leakage. This article mainly focuses on the privacy disclosure issues caused by user’s behavior and third-party applications and websites. On the one hand, because of the diversity of usage behaviors, the revelation of personal information varies significantly. A survey is conducted to present empirical and quantitative result. On the other hand, the access mechanism between OSN and third party is not perfect enough. Besides, it could be a potential source of privacy leak that third-party services sometimes act as advertisers and information aggregators of a user\u27s traversals. The relevant reasons and internal and external threats are presented. Finally, possible solutions to reduce the increasing information disclosure are provided. Actions should be taken along three fronts: the government, the users themselves as well as the third parties
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