I am developing an iOS app that is password protected and all the users are stored in a wordpress account that, of course, is password protected as well. Does anybody know the format that wordpress uses to store login information for these accounts, I would assume that it is a MySQL that sends a json? I have only been able to find the database code for the initial admin page but nothing that shows the way these accounts (815 to be exact) would be stored within the site.
The raw data is in the wp_users MySQL table.
The (default) code WordPress to authenticate users in the wp_check_password function. It's possible (though unlikely) that the password is a straight MD5 hash (I assume that check's just for backwards compatibility). Usually, it'll be encrypted using the PHPass library (see here for the WordPress code).
As far as I know, there's no API for checking a password that returns JSON. You'd probably have to write something yourself. This question suggests the wp_authenticate_username_password would be the best way to check the username / password combination on the server.
Related
Is it possible that a website uses the models of another lavarel website to access the database, without the first website having the sql credentials hardcoded. But with the credentials to log into the second lavarel website hardcoded.
This way the first website doesn't have to have the sql credentials on it's ftp server, but can still access the databases through the other website (with their personal login of that website).
If that is impossible, I am wondering, is there a way to access a databases without having to hardcode the credentials anywhere.
UPDATE (the actual problem)
Only a part of the database should be visible to a particular user, so i can provide different users with different credentials and they all see something different in the database
What you are talking about is an API. So you'd build out the entire infrastructure on the first website, then on the second website, it would make some kind of calls to the first website to get back the information it needs, usually using some kind of credentials or access token.
This way, you can allow anyone in the world to communicate with your website, kind of like how Facebook, or Twitter does.
As far as accessing your database, you would need to tell your app somewhere the credentials to use, so technically, you do need to hardcode them somewhere as they can't just magically make up some credentials somehow to access a database.
if your different users are defined:
use laravel model/db event to replicate the data to a database by
user.
Or sync each database with a cron job..
These have benefits to avoid security transport problems.
I need to import a bunch of data (user accounts among it) into my new MVC4 apps. The passwords are currently stored in plain text. I'd like be able to migrate all the accounts without asking the users to reset their password. Is it possible to do in SQL alone, or do I have to rely on code and call WebSecurity.CreateUserAndAccount for every user?
You will probably have to use CreateUserAndAccount because SimpleMembership expects the passwords to be hashed. Unless you know the hashing algorithm and can implement it in SQL I do not see any other way.
What would be the most secure method of using cookies to authenticate users in a classic ASP website?
I don't want to use the ASP Session object as the session cookie times out after a while, and I'd like the user to be able to keep their login to the website active between separate browser runnings.
However, I don't want to just create a cookie containing their user ID as that could be easily forged - so what are my options here? I guess some sort of encryption but I don't really know what the standard methods of doing this is.
Your options here are pretty much limited.
Get your users to log back in again; best security approach.
This obviously applies much wider than just ASP.
The best way would be to hash the password... you should be doing this in any case where you store it in database.
The hash is a cryptographic function - when you run a string through it (eg password) you get out a long code. If the input is the same, the output is always the same.
But (this is the important bit) its mathematically virtually impossible to reverse the process - to start with the hashed value and work out the password, other than brute force (someone hashes dictionary, or random strings and looks for output that matches the hash they have).
So when the user sets up account, they put in their desired password, but you hash this, and store that. Similarly in the cookie, after they login you store the hash, not the password, and this has is compared with the hash in the db.
The downside is you can't send a password reminder since you don't know the password - to you'd have to send a password reset link and have a system to do that.
If you're really paranoid you might double hash, eg when they login the password is hashed once and stored in cookie. Its then hashed again and compared with the password in db (which is also double-hashed).
Don't Do It
Maintaining a user login quote "...between separate browser runnings" is not secure. IMHO, when you close the browser a previous login should be gone. Suppose your visitor was using a community pc at a coffee shop.
If you maintain this login the potential for the next community user to open the browser, navigate to your website and "poof" they are automatically logged in as the previous user.
i have to create a login module (The question is not language specific) but i am not sure how will i validate the user. Where and how will i store the passwords. Will i have to encrypt and decrypt my passwords and if yes what are the best suggested way to do them. Overall i need to know what all things i need to take care of for developing a login module where a user can login securely to access my site.
You don't need to decrypt your passwords in order to validate them, just one way encryption works fine for this. The idea is that when a user enters a password, you encrypt it the same way (using the same algorithm and "salt") and then compare with the encrypted one stored in your database. If they are equal, with a great probability it means it's the same original password. Thus you prevent anyone - the adminstrator or any attacker - from knowing the original passwords users use on your web site.
As for the rest, it's very simple, you have a table in your database which contains user logins, encrypted passwords, and possibly some profile information as well (full name, etc).
I usually use the following function to hash user passwords:
$password_hash = sha1(MY_SALT_1 . $login_name . MY_SALT_2 .
$password . MY_SALT_3);
where MY_SALT_* are arbitrary predefined strings, could be e.g. 'the dark', 'side of', 'the moon' (or actually the less related - the better).
Yes.Sure you need to encrypt users passwords.Because most of the users using the same password almost all sites.At that time they are not want to show the passwords to admin.And another reason is most of the time the site DB may be accessed not only by admin.Some other technical persons in the organization.So it is better to encrypt the password.SHA1 is the best way to make the encryption.
Where and how will i store the passwords.
I am not sure what you mean by this.Every one use the database for it like phpmyadmin.
I’m developing a website of a client and they are sending out newsletters to their customers (through the website administration interface)
The newsletters are personal to each of the subscribed recipients/customers.
Each recipient/ customer is also a user with a username/password that enables them to sign in on the website and manage their newsletter subscriptions and participate in the sites community.
This all works like a charm.
Now my client want a “Manage my subscriptions” link in the newsletter email that when pressed automatically signs the recipient/customer in on the website with no need to remember username and password.
This could be easily solved be making a link like this:
http://mysite.com/manage.aspx?user=peter&password=hounddog
Of course information should not be clear text but encrypted in some way.
This however poses a problem since the only way a user can be authenticated on the website if by providing a valid username and password.
In the name of security, passwords are stored as hashed values in the database making it impossible for me to insert the password in the link.
What is the best way to accomplish this without compromising the security?
You will have to compromise your security somewhat, if you want people to be able to login without entering password. Note that even if you had access to the password (as in your example), you would have to embed it in a mail massage which would be transmitted in plaintext.
You can create a Guid associated with each user and message, and append it to the URL, and allow that to login automatically.
You could perhaps isolate the permissions so that a login through a newsletter guid link only allows the user to manage subscriptions, but that a real password-login is still required to participate in the forum. In that case its pretty limited what havoc can be wrecked if someone gets access to a Guid from a mail message.
Could you not insert an encrypted user name bundled with the hash value of the password?
What I mean is, encrypt & encode the user name to always be a particular length or to have a known break character in it then append the passwords hash value. this way, you could break apart the query string easily while still having the user name and password securely encoded. A straight compare of the hash values would be enough, with the unencrypted, decoded user name to allow access.
What about using an encrypted cookie that contains an access token ?
This cookie would be delivered after a successfull authentication by a separate page.
This kind of token can also be part of the URL query string.
Also you might consider using secured https instead of http.