Can foo.example.com set a cookie for bar.example.com? - cookies

I'm setting these cookies for a single sign on solution where I have one app running at foo.example.com and a different app running at bar.example.com.
I know that I can set a cookie from foo.example.com for .example.com.
If I had control over bar.example.com I'd just have it recognize a cookie from .example.com. But I have very little control of it.
For what it's worth, the app at foo.example.com is in python and the app at bar.example.com is java.

You can certianly try. However, browsers should not honor this behavior as it is a cross-site cooking attack.

This is not possible. SSO is done using protocols such as OAuth or SAML that imply sending signed messages between the endpoints and/or communication between them. There is no way to do this on the "client side".

Related

How do I use proxy in Nextjs to send HttpOnly cookie to django on different domain?

I previously posted about not being able to send HttpOnly cookie from nextJS to django either from getServerSideProps or from useEffect here. I think the reason is that my django and Nextjs are running on different domains. So I need to have same domains for both back-end and front-end. Does it mean that requests from nextJS should go from 127.0.0.1:8000 instead of 127.0.0.1:3000?
If yes, do I need to use proxy within Nextjs?
Also, I have set-up django-cors-headers, does it still require proxy?
Yes. You'll need to set up a proxy server that will forward your requests from 127.0.0.1:3000 to 127.0.0.1:8000. That way, your cookies will be shared with your backend server since the browser will assume they are from the same origin.
As for setting up a http proxy on nextjs, you can refer to this Github Answer
Setting django CORS headers will not apply to your cookies. CORS refers to requests from different origins and setting these headers will allow your backend to receive requests from different origins as you have specified in your allowedHosts declerative. Cookies can be shared within different subdomains but never different domains.

Connecting localhost to a remote dev server (CORS, same-site, secure and other headaches)

I'm currently working on a React project. The development server (Bottle/Python) for the project is hosted remotely, and my React dev-server is localhost. Part of the authentication process for the application involves setting a cookie on login, but because of same-site and secure rules that cookie is not being set, meaning that my dev frontend can't access any of the data that it needs.
Myself and the server engineer have added SameSite=None to the cookie as well as secure, but because my localhost is not https the cookie is still not being stored properly (I get the error message "this Set-Cookie" was blocked because it had the "Secure" attribute but was not received over a secure connection").
There are no issues when the app is deployed because everything is on the same domain, but for now we're stuck - we've been trying to solve the issue for several hours but can't seem to get it.
My question is - what is the best development practice if you need to access a non-local development server, but can't actually just have your own version of the server running on your local machine?
Do I:
Need to make my localhost https somehow?
Need to make the dev-server domain https?
Need to install the server locally because there's just no way to do this?
Apologies if this is a noob question, it would be great to have some advice.
Many thanks.
The short answer is:
No
Yes
No
You can run your app on http://localhost:port. Assuming response from your dev server has in response headers Set-Cookie of the cookie which has Secure flag, your dev server URL has to be https in order to have the cookie accepted by the browser.
I have this setup and it works just well.
Regarding CORS (as mentioned in the title of the question): you have to have you server configured to accept credentials and to have allowed origins configured. The client app when doing XHR request has to have withCredentials:true. Check the points 2 and 3 in my post for details.
Also note, that if you are using Chrome you can bypass for development purposes the requirement to have SameSite=None and Secure by disabling the flag "Cookies without SameSite must be secure", also detailed here

Securing LTPA Token in WebSphere Liberty Profile

We are using WebSphere Liberty Profile (17.0.0.4) to run our JAX-RS REST services. We are running our applications through Contrast, which is a scanning service. It is flagging our cookies as having the secure flag turned off. However, we are not using or touching any cookies in our code. The only cookie that is coming back in the response from our services is LtpaToken2, and sure enough, it has the secure flag set to false. How can I enable the secure flag for the LtpaToken2 cookie (hopefully via configuration and not having to read and rewrite it in our code)?
Adding <webAppSecurity ssoRequiresSSL="true"/> to the server.xml file should do it.

How to use HTTPS for webservice and android app?

Im working on some JSON-based web service that is supposed to work with Android application.
I would like to encrypt data transport between client (android) and server (virtual server in datacenter).
I don't have to make sure that my server is my server, just data encryption.
I have no idea how to use HTTPS.
Do I just put my PHP files in private_html and use https://example.com url?
To use HTTPS, you don't have to do anything in the coding of your web service - it's all in your hosting. Here the are steps you can follow. The specific instructions differ in your hosting (IIS, Apache, AWS/Azure, etc), but you can google specifics on how to accomplish any of these steps for whatever host and application framework you decide.
Buy an SSL certificate (there are many different vendors, but expect between $75-$200 for the certificate) based on the vendor, reputation, and level of security you need.
Generate a certificate signing request (CSR) from the server you'll be hosting.
Upload the CSR to the SSL vendor who will validate and provide the certificate for your use.
Import the SSL certificate into your application server, and configure the site to use the certificate. For instance, if you're hosting Microsoft IIS, you'd import the SSL certificate and then add HTTPS bindings on 443 to the specific website hosting your web service.
Another point of security. Since you are deploying SSL, you don't have to do any application level encryption (assuming you are not putting sensitive information in query strings - use POST if you think you need to). You probably would want to implement some security to restrict access to your web service so only your app can access it. Best practice is some level of OAuth, but at a minimum some type of pre-shared key in the header of the request is a lot better than nothing.
Here are some additional sites for more information:
https://www.digicert.com/ssl-certificate-installation.htm
https://support.godaddy.com/help/category/742/ssl-certificates-installing-ssl-certificates?prog_id=GoDaddy
If you don't want to pay for a certificate, you can use certificate signet by your own CA and add the root certificates into your application using HTTPClient and keystores
Here there's some guides
http://datacenteroverlords.com/2012/03/01/creating-your-own-ssl-certificate-authority/
http://developer.android.com/reference/org/apache/http/client/HttpClient.html
KeyStore, HttpClient, and HTTPS: Can someone explain this code to me?
http://blog.antoine.li/2010/10/22/android-trusting-ssl-certificates/
You can limit users to use JUST and only HTTPS in apache, IIS or whatever do you use. If your client connects to your server, his communications will be likely to encrypted, because he is already using HTTPS. And for responsing in HTTPS you virtually cannot send HTTPS responses, as far as I know, unless that other side isn't also a website (for example, if you have your website, you could send such a response e.g. to Google). You should be okay to send data like http status codes (OK, NotModified, PageNotFound, ...), or if you want something more, or if it is a requirement, then there you still have JSON and you could encode it as well, with some encoding algorithms, or use binary JSON format.
Check if your hosting company provides a free public shared https address. Most of them do.
If you want to understand how to do it right, follow this thread
Warning: Don't stick with the solution below for production.
If you plan o use an https endpoint without a certificate you have to make sure to disable peer verification, check this answer

encrypting form data before submitting to server

I have developed a Django application and now want to make sure the POST data transmitted through the page is safe.
I have couple of questions about this?
I see SSL certificates being displayed on many webpages. How do I get this certificate?
Do I need to change anything on my submitted form to encrypt the data or should I change any settings on my webserver?
I know its a general question but it would be great if someone provides a good answer.
First off, the POST data transmitted through the page is never safe from an application perspective. You don't have control over the user of the website. SSL and HTTPS helps prevent man in the middle attacks to ensure the request from the client (browser) to your server is encrypted. The underlying data that is sent can be malicious, so you should always validate inputs.
Secondly, if you want to use HTTPS and SSL, which I highly recommend, you'll need to obtain a certificate from one of the providers out there and install it with your webserver, which I presume is apache. Typically your domain provider can help you with obtaining an SSL certificate for your domain from one of the main certificate authorities. Regarding the installation and setup, there is tons of information about this online as it's a common task. I'm not familiar with Apache configuration to provide any specific recommendations. You'll also want to have rewrite rules so that your site can only be accessed via HTTPS and if someone tries to use HTTP, it simply redirects to HTTPS.
Lastly, you don't need to do anything in your Django application as your webserver should handle the basic interactions between your server and client to validate the HTTPS requests.