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COEN 350: Network Security . E-Commerce Issues. E-Commerce Issues. Table of Content HTTP Authentication Cookies. HTTP Authentication. HTTP Basically very simple. GET: Used to read a website. POST: Sends data to a website. Some data has security implications FROM field contains email.
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COEN 350: Network Security E-Commerce Issues
E-Commerce Issues • Table of Content • HTTP Authentication • Cookies
HTTP Authentication • HTTP • Basically very simple. • GET: Used to read a website. • POST: Sends data to a website. • Some data has security implications • FROM field contains email. • But not by default, only if browser is configured that way. • Used for spiders (crawlers) so that admins can complain about spider behavior.
HTTP Authentication • HTTP • Some data has security implications • AUTHORIZATION field: • Contains authentication data. • COOKIE field: • See below • REFERRER (REFERER) field: • Contains the URL of the page from which the client came.
HTTP Authentication • Authentication • URL allow username / password data. • HTTP1.1 has two authentication mechanisms. • Can use SSL, integrated as HTTPS.
HTTP Authentication • URL Authentication
HTTP Authentication • URL authentication • Can be abused in phishing expeditions.
HTTP Authentication • Native HTTP provides a challenge / response framework.
HTTP Authentication • HTTP authenticator: • A base 64 username / password encoding: • The username and the password in the base 64 encoding • Completely insecure. • Data is not humanly readable • It is easy to decode. • Even easier to replay authorization
HTTP Authentication • HTTP authenticator: • Digest Authentication • Challenge includes • The WWW-Authenticate field reads "Digest". • The realm field gives the authentication realm. • The nonce field contains a value to be used as a nonce. • The opaque field contains a value that the server needs the client to pass back to it unchanged. • The stale field indicates whether the previous request was denied because the nonce was stale. • The algorithm field specifies the hash algorithm to be used, typically MD5. • The qop or quality of protection field can contain the value "auth" for authentication only or the value "auth-int" for both authentication and integrity protection.
HTTP Authentication • HTTP authenticator: • Digest Authentication • Response includes challenge values and • Client nonce • Digest • Calculated by hash algorithm requested. • From challenge data, username, password, client nonce. • (This prevents someone spoofing the server to control all data in the digest.)
Cookies • HTTP is stateless. • Good for requesting resources. • Bad if server needs to update state based on clients actions. • Fat URLs change server state. • Cookies maintain state at client site. • E-commerce integrates both.
Cookies • How cookies work: • Client contacts server. • Server includes cookie in answer. • “Slapping a cookie”. • Client stores cookie in cookie jar. • Client goes to the same website: • Browser passes unexpired cookies along.
Cookies • Cookies: • Permanent cookies • Valid for more than a single transaction. • Session cookies • Deleted when browser is closed.
Cookies • Cookies • Contain domain field. • Example: • Alice visits www.scu.edu • scu.edu slams her with • Set-cookie: user="Alice"; domain="scu.edu“ • Alice visits cse.scu.edu • Browser includes the cookie in header of request because it matches the domain.
Cookies • Domain field • Specifies to whom cookies will be sent. • Limited to specific sites. • E.g. .com.ft or .edu is not allowed. • Path field • Limits cookie sending to a given path. • path = “www.cse.scu.edu/~tschwarz/coen350_04”
Cookies • Cookie Versions • Netscape Cookies= Version 0 Cookies • RFC 2965 Cookies = Version 1 Cookies • RFC 2965 : HTTP State Management Mechanism.
Cookies • Version 0 cookies • Set-Cookie: name=value [; expires=date] [;path=path] [;domain=domain] [;secure]. • Secure: only include this cookie with HTTPS (i.e. with SSL) requests.
Cookies • Web Bugs • Web page can contain URL addressed resources. • Web bug: • Typically 1 by 1 image. • Hence invisible. • Ad from Ad server. • Browser goes to the URL specified. • Sends along cookies belonging to that URL • Referrer field contains the referring URL.
Cookies • Spying Cookies
Cookies • Unprotected Cookies • Servers need to protect themselves against users altering cookies. • Plain text cookies are simple to forge. • Change state information such as prices of items in a shopping cart. • Gain unauthorized access by changing the user-id. • Encryption of cookies needs to be understood and strong.