Security checklist for developers

[Back to Contents](README.md)

### The Security Checklist

##### AUTHENTICATION SYSTEMS (Signup/Signin/2 Factor/Password reset)

- [ ] Use HTTPS everywhere.

- [ ] Store password hashes using `Bcrypt` (no salt necessary - `Bcrypt` does it for you).

- [ ] Destroy the session identifier after `logout`.

- [ ] Destroy all active sessions on reset password (or offer to).

- [ ] Must have the `state` parameter in OAuth2.

- [ ] No open redirects after successful login or in any other intermediate redirects.

- [ ] When parsing Signup/Login input, sanitize for javascript://, data://, CRLF characters.

- [ ] Set secure, httpOnly cookies.

- [ ] In Mobile `OTP` based mobile verification, do not send the OTP back in the response when
`generate OTP` or `Resend OTP` API is called.

- [ ] Limit attempts to `Login`, `Verify OTP`, `Resend OTP` and `generate OTP` APIs for a particular
user. Have an exponential backoff set or/and something like a captcha based challenge.

- [ ] Check for randomness of reset password token in the emailed link or SMS.

- [ ] Set an expiration on the reset password token for a reasonable period.

- [ ] Expire the reset token after it has been successfully used.

##### USER DATA & AUTHORIZATION

- [ ] Any resource access like, `my cart`, `my history` should check the logged in user's ownership of
the resource using session id.

- [ ] Serially iterable resource id should be avoided. Use `/me/orders` instead of

`/user/37153/orders`. This acts as a sanity check in case you forgot to check for authorization token.

- [ ] `Edit email/phone number` feature should be accompanied by a verification email to the owner
of the account.
- [ ] Any upload feature should sanitize the filename provided by the user. Also, for generally reasons
apart from security, upload to something like S3 (and post-process using lambda) and not your own
server capable of executing code.

- [ ] `Profile photo upload` feature should sanitize all the `EXIF` tags also if not required.

- [ ] For user ids and other ids, use [RFC compliant ](http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt) `UUID`
instead of integers. You can find an implementation for this for your language on Github.

- [ ] JWT are awesome. Use them if required for your single page app/APIs.

##### ANDROID / IOS APP

- [ ] `salt` from payment gateways should not be hardcoded.

- [ ] `secret` / `auth token` from 3rd party SDK's should not be hardcoded.

- [ ] API calls intended to be done `server to server` should not be done from the app.

- [ ] In Android, all the granted [permissions](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/security/

permissions.html) should be carefully evaluated.

- [ ] On iOS, store sensitive information (authentication tokens, API keys, etc.) in the system keychain.
Do __not__ store this kind of information in the user defaults.

- [ ] [Certificate pinning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Public_Key_Pinning) is highly

recommended.

##### SECURITY HEADERS & CONFIGURATIONS

- [ ] `Add` [CSP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Security_Policy) header to mitigate XSS and

data injection attacks. This is important.

- [ ] `Add` [CSRF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery) header to prevent cross

site request forgery. Also add [SameSite](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-cookie-same-
site-00) attributes on cookies.

- [ ] `Add` [HSTS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security) header to prevent

SSL stripping attack.

- [ ] `Add` your domain to the [HSTS Preload List](https://hstspreload.org/)

- [ ] `Add` [X-Frame-Options](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickjacking#X-Frame-Options) to protect

against Clickjacking.

- [ ] `Add` [X-XSS-Protection](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Secure_Headers_Project#X-
XSS-Protection) header to mitigate XSS attacks.

- [ ] Update DNS records to add [SPF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework)

record to mitigate spam and phishing attacks.
- [ ] Add [subresource integrity checks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subresource_Integrity) if
loading your JavaScript libraries from a third party CDN. For extra security, add the [require-sri-for]
(https://w3c.github.io/webappsec-subresource-integrity/#parse-require-sri-for) CSP-directive so you
don't load resources that don't have an SRI sat.

- [ ] Use random CSRF tokens and expose business logic APIs as HTTP POST requests. Do not expose
CSRF tokens over HTTP for example in an initial request upgrade phase.

- [ ] Do not use critical data or tokens in GET request parameters. Exposure of server logs or a
machine/stack processing them would expose user data in turn.

##### SANITIZATION OF INPUT

- [ ] `Sanitize` all user inputs or any input parameters exposed to user to prevent
[XSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting).

- [ ] Always use parameterized queries to prevent [SQL

Injection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_injection).

- [ ] Sanitize user input if using it directly for functionalities like CSV import.

- [ ] `Sanitize` user input for special cases like robots.txt as profile names in case you are using a url
pattern like coolcorp.io/username.

- [ ] Do not hand code or build JSON by string concatenation ever, no matter how small the object is.
Use your language defined libraries or framework.

- [ ] Sanitize inputs that take some sort of URLs to prevent

[SSRF](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v1TkWZtrhzRLy0bYXBcdLUedXGb9njTNIJXa3u9akHM/
edit#heading=h.t4tsk5ixehdd).

- [ ] Sanitize Outputs before displaying to users.

##### OPERATIONS

- [ ] If you are small and inexperienced, evaluate using AWS elasticbeanstalk or a PaaS to run your
code.

- [ ] Use a decent provisioning script to create VMs in the cloud.

- [ ] Check for machines with unwanted publicly `open ports`.

- [ ] Check for no/default passwords for `databases` especially MongoDB & Redis.

- [ ] Use SSH to access your machines; do not setup a password, use SSH key-based authentication
instead.

- [ ] Install updates timely to act upon zero day vulnerabilities like Heartbleed, Shellshock.

- [ ] Modify server config to use TLS 1.2 for HTTPS and disable all other schemes. (The tradeoff is
good.)
- [ ] Do not leave the DEBUG mode on. In some frameworks, DEBUG mode can give access full-
fledged REPL or shells or expose critical data in error messages stacktraces.

- [ ] Be prepared for bad actors & DDOS - use a hosting service that has DDOS mitigation.

- [ ] Set up monitoring for your systems, and log stuff (use [New Relic](https://newrelic.com/) or
something like that).

- [ ] If developing for enterprise customers, adhere to compliance requirements. If AWS S3, consider
using the feature to [encrypt
data](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/UsingServerSideEncryption.html). If using
AWS EC2, consider using the feature to use encrypted volumes (even boot volumes can be encrypted
now).

##### PEOPLE

- [ ] Set up an email (e.g. [email protected]) and a page for security researchers to report
vulnerabilities.

- [ ] Depending on what you are making, limit access to your user databases.

- [ ] Be polite to bug reporters.

- [ ] Have your code review done by a fellow developer from a secure coding perspective. (More eyes)

- [ ] In case of a hack or data breach, check previous logs for data access, ask people to change
passwords. You might require an audit by external agencies depending on where you are
incorporated.

- [ ] Set up [Netflix's Scumblr](https://github.com/Netflix/Scumblr) to hear about talks about your

organization on social platforms and Google search.