Tagged Questions

4
votes
2answers
80 views

How Secure are Authenticity Token in Rails

I came across a website which uses Rails Authenticity token to prevent CSRF attacks. My concern here is that I can see the authenticity token in the source code of the web page. If any other service ...
2
votes
1answer
96 views

User Authentication API

I'm developing a web API for a user database that will be used to verify a given username / password combination is valid. I'm just looking for comments / criticism on the following method that I'm ...
-2
votes
1answer
32 views

What is the notion challenge in authetication?

Can someone help me what is a challenge in authentication wordbook?
1
vote
1answer
198 views

iOS auth/auth with a REST Webservice

we're currently in the design phase of a new "Gateway-Server" which we want to develop. Our server has a REST-Service. My task is to find viable options to protect the access to the aforementionend ...
1
vote
2answers
100 views

Should the Keygen element be used to create a certificate for mutual auth TLS? What alternatives are there?

I'm interested in using mutual auth TLS to improve the security of my javascript based webservices . I've looked at the Keygen element and given all its issues, not sure if this can even be used for ...
3
votes
1answer
147 views

Payment security on Android App

I am developing an application from which users browse and buy books. The client can be Android ,iOS, Mac. The server is ASP.net Web APIs. I know there are many payment services available. One of ...
3
votes
4answers
459 views

Is it okay for API secret to be stored in plain text or decrypt-able?

Aren't API keys considered usernames and API secrets considered passwords? Why is it that API servers like Amazon Web Services allow you to view your API secret in plain text? It makes me think they ...
3
votes
5answers
580 views

How to secure a server backend

I am developing a server which serves two purposes: it is a CMS for people to use and maintain some data, and a Web Service for a mobile app to get this data. It runs on a Debian server running Tomcat ...
4
votes
1answer
1k views

Facebook page receiving improbable amount of likes from unknown users

A bit of an odd problem, but I'm not totally sure where to post this. I am an administrator for a facebook page that suddenly began receiving hundreds of likes in the past few days. This trend began ...
6
votes
6answers
3k views

Securing an API for mobile access

I've built a nice REST/JSON API that is used by other companies (our clients) as a B2B service. Each of our clients has a username/password pair, and we also do HTTPS and validate the source IP of ...
1
vote
1answer
145 views

How can a SAML Relying Party redirect to one of two IDPs?

We need to support the following Authentication flows User 1 logs into Salesforce using Salesforce Credentials User 2 logs into Salesforce using Arcot +Ping + Siteminder credentials User 2 logs into ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views

HMAC/PBKDF2 vs Simple hashing algorithm for web service authentication?

We are in the process of creating a web service and have been investigating ways of securing it. In reality, the service is likely to get very little traffic and the data is likely to be of little use ...
0
votes
1answer
121 views

Securing communication

The problem: I have an open-source client (a Firefox add-on written in JavaScript) and a server containing somewhat sensible user information: username and user history (all from YouTube). The client ...
7
votes
3answers
997 views

Any flaws in this security model for a REST web service?

I have designed a REST web service which requires authentication. It handles authentication in a manner similar to Amazon Web Services, namely: the user has an ACCESS_KEY (say, 'abcd') and a ...
4
votes
4answers
420 views

Ensuring a web-service only processes requests from specific computers

I'm in the process of designing a system that consists a client application and a single web-service. The client is distributed on several machines (installed by me or a colleague), and the ...