Rails Security Pitfalls

Common security pitfalls in Rails which I presented at LVRUG

Transcript

1. Rails Security Pitfalls Jerome Basa @jldbasa March 2014
2. whoami 2014 2.6 years many to mention 3 years 7 years hire me! ^^;
3. Web Application Security
4. Web Application Security source: Cenzic Vulnerability Report 2014
5. Web Application Security “96% of tested applications in 2013
 have vulnerabilities” - CENZIC developer usually prioritise feature completion rather than security certification not all companies hire dedicated
 security experts
6. is Rails secure?
7. Is Rails secure? relatively secure by default Attack Type Rails Countermeasure SQL Injection SQL Escape XSS HTML Escape CSRF Authenticity Token
8. Is Rails secure? one framework is not more secure 
 than another flawed coding = successful attack
9. Security Pitfalls
10. SQL Injection
11. SQL Injection exploits of a mom » xkcd.com/327
12. SQL Injection 
 User.where("username LIKE '%#{params[:q]}%'") ! ! SELECT `users`.* FROM `users` WHERE (username LIKE '%jerome%') ! !
13. SQL Injection ! params[:q] = "') UNION SELECT username, password,1,1,1 FROM users --" ! ! SELECT `users`.* FROM `users` WHERE (username LIKE '%') UNION SELECT username, password, 1,1,1 FROM users --%')
14. SQL Injection ! params[:q] = "') UNION SELECT username, password,1,1,1 FROM users --" ! ! SELECT `users`.* FROM `users` WHERE (username LIKE '%') UNION SELECT username, password, 1,1,1 FROM users --%')
15. SQL Injection 
 User.where("username LIKE ?", "%#{params[:q]}%") countermeasure countermeasure
16. Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
17. XSS ! <span> <%= raw @post.content %> </span> template code 
 params[:content] = "<script>alert('hello');</script>" content from user
18. XSS
19. XSS 
 <span> <%= sanitize(@post.content, tags: %w(a), attributes: %w(href)) %> </span> countermeasure sanitize user input; use Rails method such 
 as sanitize look for: raw and .html_safe
20. Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF)
21. CSRF attacker sends request on victim’s behalf User Your Site logs in Malicious Site navigates to Your Site hidden image, post back to doesn’t depend on XSS
22. CSRF use HTTP (GET, POST) methods
 appropriately countermeasure use Rails default CSRF protection
23. ‘match’ in Routing 
 # Example in config/routes.rb match ':controller(/:action(/:id))(.:format)' match matches all HTTP verb and Rails CSRF protection doesn’t apply to GET requests. route will allow GET method to delete posts 
 match ‘/posts/delete/:id', :to => “posts#destroy",
 :as => "delete_post"
24. ‘match’ in Routing # Example in config/routes.rb # match ':controller(/:action(/:id))(.:format)' ! match '/posts/delete/:id', :to => "posts#destroy", :as => “delete_post", :via => :delete use correct HTTP verb in routing e.g. ‘get’, 
 ‘post’, etc. countermeasure use :via
25. Mass Assignment
26. Mass Assignment ! def create # ... @user = User.new(params[:user]) # ... end ! <input type="text" name=“user[username]" type="text" /> <input type="text" name="user[email]" type=“text" /> ! <input type="text" name="user[admin]" value="1" type="text" />
27. Mass Assignment ! class User < ActiveRecord::Base attr_protected :admin ! # ... end blacklist attributes using attr_protected countermeasure
28. Mass Assignment ! class User < ActiveRecord::Base attr_accessible :username, :email # ... end whitelist attributes using attr_accessible ! config.active_record.whitelist_attributes = true
29. Mass Assignment ! def create # ... @user = User.new(params_user) # ... end ! private ! def params_user params.require(:user).permit( :username, :email) end use strong parameters
30. Secret Token
31. Secret Token ! MyApp::Application.config.secret_token = '38d07e4b…' config/initializers/secret_token.rb this token is used to sign cookies that the 
 application sets. for more info, read:
 
 http://bit.ly/hack_rails_app_using_secret_token
32. Secret Token ! MyApp::Application.config.secret_token = ENV['TOKEN'] config/initializers/secret_token.rb * generate new secret by running $ rake secret countermeasure
33. Logging Parameters
34. Logging Parameters ! Rails.application.config.filter_parameters += [:password, :ssn] :password & :ssn will be replaced with “[FILTERED]” logs
35. Scopes
36. Scopes ! class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :posts end ! def edit @post = Post.find_by id: params[:id] end
37. Scopes ! def edit @post = current_user.posts.find_by id: params[:id] end use authorization gem such as cancan or pundit look for :edit, :update, :destroy methods countermeasure
38. Admin
39. Admin URL http://yourapp.com/admin “old habits die hard”
40. Admin URL whitelist IP address recommendation use sub-domain separate application VPN or intranet access only
41. Conclusion
42. Conclusion keep your application up to date on all layers never trust any data from a user code review use brakeman gem - brakemanscanner.org
43. Conclusion brakeman - Rails security scanner ! $ brakeman -o report.html ! +----------------------+-------+ | Warning Type | Total | +----------------------+-------+ | Cross Site Scripting | 1 | | SQL Injection | 1 | | Session Setting | 1 | +----------------------+-------+
44. brakeman demo
45. Further Resources
46. RoR Security Guide
47. RoR Security Google Groups
48. Railscasts on Security
49. Questions?