Securing Ajax Applications

Ajax applications should be open yet secure. Far too often security is added as an afterthought. Potential flaws need to be identified and addressed right away. This book explores Ajax and web application security with an eye for dangerous gaps and offers ways that you can plug them before they become a problem. By making security part of the process from the start, you will learn how to build secure Ajax applications and discover how to respond quickly when attacks occur. Securing Ajax Applications succinctly explains that the same back-and-forth communications that make Ajax so responsive also gives invaders new opportunities to gather data, make creative new requests of your server, and interfere with the communications between you and your customers. This book presents basic security techniques and examines vulnerabilities with JavaScript, XML, JSON, Flash, and other technologies -- vital information that will ultimately save you time and money. Topics include: An overview of the evolving web platform, including APIs, feeds, web services and asynchronous messaging Web security basics, including common vulnerabilities, common cures, state management and session management How to secure web technologies, such as Ajax, JavaScript, Java applets, Active X controls, plug-ins, Flash and Flex How to protect your server, including front-line defense, dealing with application servers, PHP and scripting Vulnerabilities among web standards such as HTTP, XML, JSON, RSS, ATOM, REST, and XDOS How to secure web services, build secure APIs, and make open mashups secure Securing Ajax Applications takes on the challenges created by this new generation of web development, and demonstrates why web security isn't just for administrators and back-end programmers any more. It's also for web developers who accept the responsibility that comes with using the new wonders of the Web.

Ajax applications should be open yet secure. Far too often security is added as an afterthought. Potential flaws need to be identified and addressed right away. This book explores Ajax and web application security with an eye for dangerous gaps and offers ways that you can plug them before they become a problem. By making security part of the process from the start, you will learn how to build secure Ajax applications and discover how to respond quickly when attacks occur. Securing Ajax Applications succinctly explains that the same back-and-forth communications that make Ajax so responsive also gives invaders new opportunities to gather data, make creative new requests of your server, and interfere with the communications between you and your customers. This book presents basic security techniques and examines vulnerabilities with JavaScript, XML, JSON, Flash, and other technologies -- vital information that will ultimately save you time and money. Topics include: An overview of the evolving web platform, including APIs, feeds, web services and asynchronous messaging Web security basics, including common vulnerabilities, common cures, state management and session management How to secure web technologies, such as Ajax, JavaScript, Java applets, Active X controls, plug-ins, Flash and Flex How to protect your server, including front-line defense, dealing with application servers, PHP and scripting Vulnerabilities among web standards such as HTTP, XML, JSON, RSS, ATOM, REST, and XDOS How to secure web services, build secure APIs, and make open mashups secure Securing Ajax Applications takes on the challenges created by this new generation of web development, and demonstrates why web security isn't just for administrators and back-end programmers any more. It's also for web developers who accept the responsibility that comes with using the new wonders of the Web.

The Hands-On, Practical Guide to Preventing Ajax-Related Security Vulnerabilities More and more Web sites are being rewritten as Ajax applications; even traditional desktop software is rapidly moving to the Web via Ajax. But, all too often, this transition is being made with reckless disregard for security. If Ajax applications aren’t designed and coded properly, they can be susceptible to far more dangerous security vulnerabilities than conventional Web or desktop software. Ajax developers desperately need guidance on securing their applications: knowledge that’s been virtually impossible to find, until now. Ajax Security systematically debunks today’s most dangerous myths about Ajax security, illustrating key points with detailed case studies of actual exploited Ajax vulnerabilities, ranging from MySpace’s Samy worm to MacWorld’s conference code validator. Even more important, it delivers specific, up-to-the-minute recommendations for securing Ajax applications in each major Web programming language and environment, including .NET, Java, PHP, and even Ruby on Rails. You’ll learn how to: · Mitigate unique risks associated with Ajax, including overly granular Web services, application control flow tampering, and manipulation of program logic · Write new Ajax code more safely—and identify and fix flaws in existing code · Prevent emerging Ajax-specific attacks, including JavaScript hijacking and persistent storage theft · Avoid attacks based on XSS and SQL Injection—including a dangerous SQL Injection variant that can extract an entire backend database with just two requests · Leverage security built into Ajax frameworks like Prototype, Dojo, and ASP.NET AJAX Extensions—and recognize what you still must implement on your own · Create more secure “mashup” applications Ajax Security will be an indispensable resource for developers coding or maintaining Ajax applications; architects and development managers planning or designing new Ajax software, and all software security professionals, from QA specialists to penetration testers.

This is the eBook version of the printed book. Many organizations are diving headfirst into AJAX technologies to make their Web applications richer and more user friendly, but they often do not realize the security implications of the AJAX approach. Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX technologies, commonly known by the codename "Atlas," and other AJAX frameworks are changing the way Web applications look and are developed, but Web developers are often unaware of the security risks they are introducing into their applications with these emerging technologies. AJAX fundamentally changes the user experience and server interaction in Web applications, so developers may be taking otherwise secure applications and opening up new angles of attack for hackers. This short cut outlines the increased security risk inherent with AJAX technologies and addresses how developers can use Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX to implement secure AJAX applications. After discussing Web application security pitfalls that are common in AJAX development, given its focus on increased client processing and more frequent access to Web services and databases, the author focuses on a few key security principles for AJAX developers--demystifying AJAX security and teaching how to develop secure AJAX applications using ASP.NET AJAX Extensions. The short cut concludes with a walkthrough of security testing best practices that will help effectively uncover security problems in AJAX applications during development and testing. What This Short Cut Covers 3 Section 1: AJAX, ASPNET, and Atlas 4 Section 2: AJAX Security Pitfalls 19 Section 3: Securing ASPNET AJAX 44 Section 4: ASPNET AJAX Security Testing 81 About the Author 92

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Among the tests you perform on web applications, security testing is perhaps the most important, yet it's often the most neglected. The recipes in the Web Security Testing Cookbook demonstrate how developers and testers can check for the most common web security issues, while conducting unit tests, regression tests, or exploratory tests. Unlike ad hoc security assessments, these recipes are repeatable, concise, and systematic-perfect for integrating into your regular test suite. Recipes cover the basics from observing messages between clients and servers to multi-phase tests that script the login and execution of web application features. By the end of the book, you'll be able to build tests pinpointed at Ajax functions, as well as large multi-step tests for the usual suspects: cross-site scripting and injection attacks. This book helps you: Obtain, install, and configure useful-and free-security testing tools Understand how your application communicates with users, so you can better simulate attacks in your tests Choose from many different methods that simulate common attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and manipulating hidden form fields Make your tests repeatable by using the scripts and examples in the recipes as starting points for automated tests Don't live in dread of the midnight phone call telling you that your site has been hacked. With Web Security Testing Cookbook and the free tools used in the book's examples, you can incorporate security coverage into your test suite, and sleep in peace.

Provides information on using Ajax in building Web applications.

Reusable components and patterns for Ajax-driven applications Ajax is one of the latest and greatest ways to improve users’ online experience and create new and innovative web functionality. By allowing specific parts of a web page to be displayed without refreshing the entire page, Ajax significantly enhances the experience of web applications. It also lets web developers create intuitive and innovative interaction processes. Ajax for Web Application Developers provides the in-depth working knowledge of Ajax that web developers need to take their web applications to the next level. The book shows how to create an Ajax-driven web application from an object-oriented perspective, and it includes discussion of several useful Ajax design patterns. This detailed guide covers the creation of connections to a MySQL database with PHP 5 via a custom Ajax engine and shows how to gracefully format the response with CSS, JavaScript, and XHTML while keeping the data tightly secure. It also covers the use of four custom Ajax-enabled components in an application and how to create each of them from scratch. The final section of the book combines the individual code examples and techniques from earlier chapters of the book into one larger, Ajax-driven application—an internal web mail application that can be used in any user-based application, such as a community-based web application. Readers will learn not only how to create and use their own reusable Ajax components in this application but also how to connect their components to any future Ajax applications that they might build. Web Development/Ajax/JavaScript