Top 10 OAuth 2 Implementation Vulnerabilities

Some time ago I posted a blogpost abut  Top 5 OAuth 2 Implementation Vulnerabilities.
This week I have extended the list while presenting Top X OAuth 2 Hacks at OWASP Switzerland.

This blog post (like the presentation) is just a collection of interesting attack OAuth related.

#10 The Postman Always Rings Twice 

I have introduced this 'attack' in last year post . This is for provider implementer, it is not extremely severe but, hey, is better to follow the spec. Specifically

The client MUST NOT use the authorization code  more than once.  If an authorization code is used more than once, the authorization server MUST deny the request and SHOULD revoke (when possible) all tokens previously issued based on that authorization code.

It turned out that even Facebook and Google did it wrong... :)

#9 Match Point

To all OAuth Providers be sure to follow section 4.1.3 of the spec in particular

...if the "redirect_uri" parameter was included in the initial authorization request as described in Section 4.1.1, and if included ensure that their values are identical.

Should you fail to do it, this in combination with Lassie Come Home below is game over (even for implementer that support only the Authorization Code Grant flow).

#8 Open redirect in rfc6749 

If you want to implent OAuth Authorization Server and  follow verbatim the OAuth core spec you might end up having an Open Redirect. Full story here . Interesting attack here .

#7 Native apps - Which OAuth flow ?

In a nutshell

• It is NOT recommended that native applications use the implicit flow.
• Native clients CAN NOT protect a client_secret unless it is configured at runtime as in the dynamic registration case (RFC 7591).

If you do not follow this suggestions then you risk this.

#6 Cross-site request forgery for OAuth Clients

Defined  the the Most Common OAuth2 Vulnerability. So do you the state anti CSRF parameter, as long as you use the right library to check and not a broken one :)

#5 Cross-site request forgery for Authorization Servers

As per any other website part is important to not forget Cross Site Request Forgery aka CSRF protection in your OAuth provider impelemtation. Some examples are:

• the Doorkeeper's OAuth endpoints lack of CSRF protection
• the CSRF issue I found on the Github OAuth implementation
• Hotmail being hacked 

#4 On Bearer Tokens

DO NOT  (if you can avoid) pass the access_token as a URI parameter a la

GET /resource?access_token=mF_9.B5f-4.1Jq HTTP/1.1                  
Host: server.example.com

since:

• The access token ends up being logged in access.log files (being the access token part of the URI) - http://thehackernews.com/2013/10/vulnerability-in-facebook-app-allows.html
• People tend to be indiscriminate on what copy and past in public forum when searching for answer (e.g. Stackoverflow). 
• There is a risk of access token leakage through the referrer - http://intothesymmetry.blogspot.it/2015/10/on-oauth-token-hijacks-for-fun-and.html

#3 The Devil Wears Prada

 If you are an OAuth client that use OAuth for authentication (do NOT). If you absolutely have to, you'd better read User Authentication with OAuth 2.0 . Specially if you are using the OAuth Implicit Grant flow (aka Client side).
More about the topic in here and here

#2 Lassie Come Home for OAuth clients

If you are building an OAuth client,  

Thou shall register a redirect_uri as much as specific as you can

http://intothesymmetry.blogspot.ie/2015/06/on-oauth-token-hijacks-for-fun-and.html

#1 Lassie Come Home for Authorization Server

 ....and the winner is (again) 'Lassie Come Home'. Well this is hell of a danger.
There are way too many example of provider vulnerable to this attack. Just listing few here:

• Egor Homakov hacking Github
• me/myself hacking Facebook bypassing the regex redirect_uri validation
• me/myself breaking the Google/Github integration

At least the mitigation for this issue is damn simple:  use exact matching against registered redirect uri to validate the redirect_uri parameter

BTW the slides are here.

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//SHAMELESS SELF ADVERTISEMENT
If you like OAuth 2.0 and/or you want to know more about it here you can find a book on OAuth that Justin Richer and myself have been writing on the subject.

</snip>