OWASP Top 10: The Web's Most Critical Security Risks
OWASP Top 10: The Web's Most Critical Security Risks A practical guide to the OWASP Top 10 — the industry-standard awareness document listing the most critical web application security risks — covering each category with concrete examples, .NET-specific mitigations, and connections to the authentication, authorization, and data-access practices covered elsewhere in this series. Table of Contents…
A02: Cryptographic Failures
Ensuring sensitive data is securely transmitted over the internet is paramount. This involves using Transport Layer Security (TLS) for all communications and adopting HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) to enforce HTTPS connections. By doing so, you protect against interception of sensitive data, such as credentials, session tokens, or personal information, as it travels between the client and server.
HTTP without TLS (clear text) leaves data vulnerable to interception, especially on any network segment between the client and server. Moreover, employing weak or obsolete cryptographic algorithms can render your security measures ineffective. For instance, algorithms like MD5 and SHA1 are now considered broken and unsuitable for security-sensitive applications.
For integrity checks, you should use modern algorithms like SHA256 instead. Additionally, avoid using deprecated algorithms such as MD5, SHA1, or DES for any security-relevant purposes. Modern cryptographic APIs in .NET make secure choices the default, but it's still feasible to unintentionally utilize outdated algorithms, often through inherited legacy code.
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