this is my first post, i'd like to ask you how can i avoid a direct call of a php page passing POST parameters in the browser?Because I have an iOS application and this should send data to a php page with POST method and then the php page will store data on a database but i don't want that someone, which somehow find the page address, type directly in the browser the address of php page followed by post parameters. I've searched and find that creating a .htaccess file could prevent the php call but, being a newbie, i would like to ask if this prevent the direct passage of parameters on browser.
Thanks in advance for your answer.
NO.
You can't control the user-side operations. anybody that can call your php page - can send any parameter as he like to.
What you can do is this:
1) block all IP addresses without your own (if your IP is static).
2) add a secret parameter to all of your requests. and in php file add condition like
if($_POST["secret"]!="some secret string")
exit("No permissions");
Make the parameter name (or value...) - hard to guessing!
I think the best way is to pass a secret code, work on https website and make some coditions for the variables that passed to your ftp like it must not be Null , if you are passing an email for example you have to validate it's format... so you make it hard for the hacker to get control :)
Related
I wrote a API for a system. It is a PHP file, which is called with some parameters. It is called like this: "https://abcdefg.de/api/api.php?test=test". This script returns sensitive data when it is called. To make sure only the right api users get the information the parameters has to contain correct credentials.
To make the api more secure the idea was to check in addition who is calling the script. For example only the website "https://test.de" should be able to call the api script. But how to achieve this in PHP? How to check what is the url of the "caller"?
I already tried $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']; but I read that it can be easily manipulated and in our case it returns always null, because we use https instead of http.
Is there a solution to our problem?
Thanks in advance,
Filip.
HTTP_REFERER will not be working in real with API, it's related to the form submitted from another page or website, in case this is the situation this is called cross-site request forgery, the solution here is to create a token in every rendered form and send it with the submitted data, from the backend, you will validate this token (most of the time is saved in the sessions), you can check it
I'm working on a simple contact form right now that will just post to a /contact endpoint and update a message via ajax if success or failure. I plan on having other forms such as account settings work in this sort of way too so I can avoid having to refresh the page. I'm new to working with ajax and creating my own api's so any help would be awesome.
Basically what I want to do right now is verify that the post request/body is being sent from my website and not an external source. I thought about just checking the url with PHP but I'm not sure if this can be spoofed. Any help would be great, thanks!
One method is to create a unique ID/GUID when the form is created, embed it in the form (hidden field, JS var), and also store it to $_SESSION. When your script is called via AJAX, pass this value in the AJAX call, and then compare it on the server side. That way, you not only know it came from your page, but from the same session.
To check this things security i would pass a hash generated on the client (with certain rules) and check if the hash is valid on the server php endpoint. You can use $_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"] to check if the domain matches but that can be easily spoofed and sometimes it may actually not even be available. I hope i answered the question. This is what i understood you were asking.
Please I am designing a website and passed two IDs to through URL and got it using GET .But I noticed that anyone could change the value of ID in the URL and it alters the page content. Is there anyway to prevent this ...
A code like
www. site.com/main.php?user1_id=4&user2_id=7
If changed by anybody to
www.site.com/main.php?user1_id=6&user2_id=10
It shows another detail not meant to be seen.
Implement control at server side and check if the user requesting the resource has access to it or not. Anyone can change anything at client side easily. This should be controlled from server.
I used Zend Framework for near 3 month and I'm searching for a method to pass parameters from the view to the controller in a secure way. I prefer to pass the parameters like $_POST method, but I don't want to use forms.
Is there any method to use in ZF? I only know the url() method but I don't know if this method is works well to passing important data to the controller.
HTTP is a stateless protocol and you can basically choose from four solutions to preserve information between requests (as this is, I think, what you are trying to do, isn't it):
Query string
Hidden elements in forms
Cookie
Session
Session would be the safest. In ZF you have Zend_Session component to help you with session managment.
As far as sending POSTs without form it is rather difficult. Have a look at: Zend Framework: How to POST data to some external page (e.g. external payment gate) without using form?. However, if you only want to sent POST data than you could do it in PHP using cURL.
I think you might be looking for Session variables.
You want to send something that can't be seen from URL into the next request, right? Session is ideal for that.
Update:
I read your question as:
"There is this variable in page, that somehow changes. I want the user to send it to the server, but it should not appear in the URL. But without using forms."
There is no way to initiate POST request (like let the user post a password or sth like that) from browser without forms or javascript axaj call. To send some data via POST you can use Zend_Http_Client(), but that's done server-side and you still need to make a GET request first.
May I ask you how would you implement it using GET? That would help us to understand what exactly you'd like to do.
And the last idea:
I'm searching for a method to pass
parameters from the view to the
controller in a secure way
JUST BEACUSE IT'S NOT IN URL IT'S NOT SECURE! :)
I think what you can use is a digest key
The method has nothing to do with security GET, POST, Cookies or Session a person on the client side can manipulate the params.
Example:
mywebsite.com/widget.php?id=1234&action=delete
A person can change the GET param id and delete whatever they want. Obviously, your controller should implement Auth and perhaps an ACL, for authentication and authorisation, but this still wont prevent URL tampering. For example, what's the stop Bob logging in and altering a URL to edit John's widget.
you generate a digest key by concating the params into a string:
1234+password = "1234password" then generate the MD5 of the result = d5b1ee4b463dc7db3b0eaaa0ea2cb5b4
pass this along the url.
mywebsite.com/widget.php?id=1234&action=delete&mac=d5b1ee4b463dc7db3b0eaaa0ea2cb5b4
inside widget.php you can use the same formula to calculate the digest key and check to see if it matches. If they attempt to change the id to say 4567 the MD5 result would be 09fef3620249f28ae64adc23bded949, so you can deny the request.
If you have more than 1 param on your URI, string them together, add the password and generate an MD5 or SHA1.
I have a PHP script setup using Jquery $.post which would return a response or do an action within the targeted .php file within $.post.
Eg. My page has a form where you type in your Name. Once you hit the submit form button, $.post is called and sends the entered Name field value into "mywebsite.xyz/folder/ajaxscript.php"
If a user was to visit "mywebsite.xyz/folder/ajaxscript.php" directly and somehow POST the data to the script, the script would return a response / do an action, based on the submitted POST data.
The problem is, I don't want others to be able to periodically "call" an action or request a response from my website without using the website directly. Theoretically, right now you could determine what Name values my website allows without even visiting it, or you could call an action without going through the website, by simply visiting "mywebsite.xyz/folder/ajaxscript.php"
So, what measures can I take to prevent this from happening? So far my idea is to ensure that it is a $_POST and not a $_GET - so they cannot manually enter it into the browser, but they could still post data to the script...
Another measure is to apply a session key that expires, and is only valid for X amount of visits until they revisit the website. ~ Or, just have a daily "code" that changes and they'd need to grab this code from the website each day to keep their direct access to the script working (eg. I pass the daily "code" into each post request. I then check that code matches in the ajax php script.)
However, even with these meaures, they will STILL have access to the scripts so long as they know how to POST the data, and also get the new code each day. Also, having a daily code requirement will cause issues when visiting the site at midnight (12:00am) as the code will change and the script will break for someone who is on the website trying to call the script, with the invalid code being passed still.
I have attempted using .htaccess however using:
order allow,deny
deny from all
Prevents legitimate access, and I'd have to add an exception so the website's IP is allowed to access it.. which is a hassle to update I think. Although, if it's the only legitimate solution I guess I'll have to.
If I need to be more clear please let me know.
The problem you describe is similar to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF). To protect you against this you could put a cookie into the browser and have the cookie value sent in the post form too (by hidden field or just add it to $.post). On server side check both those fields, if they match the request probably came from your site.
However the problem you describe will be quite hard to protect against. Since you could easily make a script (or use Crul) to forge all kinds of requests and send to your server. I don't know how to "only allow a browser and nothing else".
Use the Session variable as you say plus...
As MyGGAN said use a value set in a cookie (CVAL1) before rendering the submit forms. If this cookie is available (JS Code Check will verify) then submit.
On the server side:
If this cookie value exists and the session variable exist then the HTTP Request came from your website.
Note: If the script (form) is to presented under another domain DO NOT allow the cookie value (CVAL1) to be set.
Do not allow HTTP Requests on the Server Side Scripts if extra Http Headers Are not available (like x-requested-with: jquery). JQuery sends a request with an X-* header to the server.
Read more on Croos-Site Request Forgery as MyGGAN suggests.
I am not really sure REMOTE_ADDR would work. Isnt that supposed to be the end users IP addr?
Firstly, you could make use of
$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], though not always trust-able.
The only bet that a valid post came from your page would be use a captcha.
try to use HTTP_SEC
// SECURITER
if ($_SERVER[HTTP_SEC_FETCH_SITE] != "same-origin")
die();
if ($_SERVER[HTTP_SEC_FETCH_MODE] != "cors")
die();
if ($_SERVER[HTTP_SEC_FETCH_DEST] != "empty")
die();