Re: Why is this secure?

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lol, neither. It was from a site I had coded. I read an article about session fixation and it seemed vulnerable based on what I read, but when I tested it, it didn't seem to be and I wasn't sure why.
What made you think that?

- Sean

On Feb 16, 2009, at 8:16 PM, Ashley Sheridan wrote:

On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 13:49 -0500, Sean DeNigris wrote:
Hi all!  The following code seems like it should be open to session
fixation attacks, but is not.  Why?!

This is the beginning of the private page...
<?php
session_start();
if (!isset($_SESSION['user']))
{
header("Location: http://[address of login page]? requestedpage=[token
for this page]");
 	exit();
}
....

If an attacker caused a known user to request the above page with ?
PHPSESSID=1234, the session_start would then register 1234 as the
current session

This is from the login page...
<?php
if($_POST['[a posted form var]'])
{
	// check submitted credentials against known users
	$status = authenticate(...);
	// if  user/pass combination is correct
	if ($status == 1)
	{
		// initiate a session
		session_start();
	
		// register some session variables
		$_SESSION['XXXXXX] = filter($_POST['XX']);

		// redirect to protected page
		header("Location: ...[requested page]);
		exit();
	}
}

When the user logged in above, the session_start would use the session cookie from the first session_start above and have a validated session
with an SID known to the attacker.

However, the top snippet does not cause an SID to be recorded in a
cookie, but the bottom one does.  Hence, the attack is prevented, but
why?

Thanks, cheers!

- Sean

Erm, is this a trick question or your homework?


Ash
www.ashleysheridan.co.uk



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