security-guide-for-developers README

The project's README from github.com/FallibleInc/security-guide-for-developers. As one markdown file: README.md.

A practical security guide for web developers (Work in progress)

The intended audience

Security issues happen for two reasons -

  1. Developers who have just started and cannot really tell a difference between using MD5 or bcrypt.
  2. Developers who know stuff but forget/ignore them.

Our detailed explanations should help the first type while we hope our checklist helps the second one create more secure systems. This is by no means a comprehensive guide, it just covers stuff based on the most common issues we have discovered in the past.

Contents

  1. The Security Checklist
  2. What can go wrong?
  3. Securely transporting stuff: HTTPS explained
  4. Authentication: I am who I say I am
    4.1 Form based authentication
    4.2 Basic authentication
    4.3 One is not enough, 2 factor, 3 factor, ....
    4.4 Why use insecure text messages? Introducing HOTP & TOTP
    4.5 Handling password resets
  5. Authorization: What am I allowed to do?
    5.1 Token based Authorization
    5.2 OAuth & OAuth2
    5.3 JWT
  6. Data Validation and Sanitation: Never trust user input
    6.1 Validating and Sanitizing Inputs
    6.2 Sanitizing Outputs
    6.3 Cross Site Scripting
    6.4 Injection Attacks
    6.5 User uploads
    6.6 Tamper-proof user inputs
  7. Plaintext != Encoding != Encryption != Hashing
    7.1 Common encoding schemes
    7.2 Encryption
    7.3 Hashing & One way functions
    7.4 Hashing speeds cheatsheet
  8. Passwords: dadada, 123456 and cute@123
    8.1 Password policies
    8.2 Storing passwords
    8.3 Life without passwords
  9. Public Key Cryptography
  10. Sessions: Remember me, please
    10.1 Where to save state?
    10.2 Invalidating sessions
    10.3 Cookie monster & you
  11. Fixing security, one header at a time
    11.1 Secure web headers
    11.2 Data integrity check for 3rd party code
    11.3 Certificate Pinning
  12. Configuration mistakes
    12.1 Provisioning in cloud: Ports, Shodan & AWS
    12.2 Honey, you left the debug mode on
    12.3 Logging (or not logging)
    12.4 Monitoring
    12.5 Principle of least privilege
    12.6 Rate limiting & Captchas
    12.7 Storing project secrets and passwords in a file
    12.8 DNS: Of subdomains and forgotten pet-projects
    12.9 Patching & Updates
  13. Attacks: When the bad guys arrive
    13.1 Clickjacking
    13.2 Cross Site Request Forgery
    13.3 Denial of Service
    13.4 Server Side Request Forgery
  14. Stats about vulnerabilities discovered in Internet Companies
  15. On reinventing the wheel, and making it square
    15.1 Security libraries and packages for Python
    15.2 Security libraries and packages for Node/JS
    15.3 Learning resources
  16. Maintaining a good security hygiene
  17. Security Vs Usability
  18. Back to Square 1: The Security Checklist explained

Who are we?

We are full stack developers who just grew tired of watching how developers were lowering the barrier to call something a hack by writing unsecure code. In the past six months, we have prevented leaks of more than 15 million credit card details, personal details of over 45 million users and potentially saved companies from shutting down. Recently, we discovered an issue that could result in system takeover and data leak in a bitcoin institution. We have helped several startups secure their systems, most of them for free, sometimes without even getting a thank you in response :)

If you disagree with something or find a bug please open an issue or file a PR. Alternatively, you can talk to us on [email protected]

security-guide-for-developers (FallibleInc/security-guide-for-developers)

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21.1K ·GitHub
Security-guide-for-developers
What is this?This is a practical security guide for web developers that explains common security issues (authentication, encryption, sessions, attacks, etc.) and gives a checklist for building more secure systems.
Is this a tool I run, or a book I read?It is a written guide/checklist (a book-style README), not a code library or a tool you install and run.
Where should a beginner start?Start with The Security Checklist section, then read 'What can go wrong?' for context before diving into the topic-by-topic chapters on auth, encryption, sessions and attacks.
Is this guide complete and finished?No, the authors explicitly mark it as a work in progress and say it only covers the most common issues they've seen, not every possible vulnerability.
Who is this guide meant for?It targets both developers who are new to security (who can't tell MD5 from bcrypt) and experienced developers who know the rules but forget or ignore them.
What topics does the checklist cover?HTTPS, authentication (form-based, basic, 2FA/HOTP/TOTP, password resets), authorization (tokens, OAuth, JWT), input validation/sanitization, encoding vs encryption vs hashing, password storage, sessions and cookies, security headers, and common attacks like XSS, CSRF, clickjacking, DoS and SSRF.
Does it recommend specific security libraries?Yes, it includes a section listing security libraries and packages for Python and Node/JS, plus further learning resources.
What are similar projects?API-Security-Checklist, CheatSheetSeries, how-to-secure-anything, Awesome-Hacking-Resources, awesome-web-security, react-bits, awesome-angular, CS-Xmind-Note
Which topics is it in?checklist, owasp, web-security, books, jwt, cheatsheet, oauth2, best-practices, oauth, authentication, cybersecurity, encryption
Creator
FallibleInc
Size
5.9 MB
Stars
21.1K
Updated
CommitAug 30
Age
10y
Commits · 90 Days