CWE-784

Reliance on Cookies without Validation and Integrity Checking in a Security Decision

The product uses a protection mechanism that relies on the existence or values of a cookie, but it does not properly ensure that the cookie is valid for the associated user.

Mitigation

Phase: Architecture and Design

Description:

  • Avoid using cookie data for a security-related decision.
Mitigation

Phase: Implementation

Description:

  • Perform thorough input validation (i.e.: server side validation) on the cookie data if you're going to use it for a security related decision.
Mitigation

Phase: Architecture and Design

Description:

  • Add integrity checks to detect tampering.
Mitigation

Phase: Architecture and Design

Description:

  • Protect critical cookies from replay attacks, since cross-site scripting or other attacks may allow attackers to steal a strongly-encrypted cookie that also passes integrity checks. This mitigation applies to cookies that should only be valid during a single transaction or session. By enforcing timeouts, you may limit the scope of an attack. As part of your integrity check, use an unpredictable, server-side value that is not exposed to the client.

No CAPEC attack patterns related to this CWE.

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