i am using devise for my user authentication in my app, something that i would like to do is after the user types their email address a little icon appears on the side of the field to state whether the email address is available, i know that this will be confirmed upon submission of the form, but I thought it would be a nice touch to have this confirm before submission.The same with the password and confirm password field.
I was looking for some resources on where to start looking or take some advice off someone who has done this before?
Thanks
Seems I should have googled a bit more before asking question,
check out
http://railscasts.com/episodes/263-client-side-validations?view=asciicast
Related
The login and forgotten password functions can be used to enumerate valid email addresses on the application, as they return different messages depending on whether or not the emails are registered. Is there a way to avoid this?
This question was asked before: Google Identity Toolkit v3 Email enumeration through reset password functionality but remains unanswered so posting here with the google-oauth tag to see whether it reaches the right people.
I've noticed that when logging in and inputting the wrong username or password, websites usually tend to hide from you which of these pieces of data is wrong. So for instance, instead of saying "Wrong password", they would only say "Wrong username/password".
I understand that their main goal is to disallow the user to try different passwords for a certain username. However, you can find out if a user exists by simply trying to register to the website with it. Thus this scenario would be possible in any case.
So why not tell the user immediately that the password they inputted is wrong? Is it only because it would make is easier to find out if the user exists (and then be able to try to crack the password for it)?
Some clarification on this would be much appreciated.
However, you can find out if a user exists by simply trying to register to the website with it.
Not if done correctly.
Signup:
Step 1: ask for email and password
Step 2: check email and follow directions within
if account with entered email already exists... the email should be something to the effect of "someone has tried to signup to Coolwebsite.com using this email address. If this was you and you have forgotten your password, click here"
If strong passwords are used (enforced), the password is usually harder to guess than the username.
Not knowing which part of the credentials is wrong, makes it much harder to guess both.
But, there are cases where this does not help much. E.g. when the username is equal to the user's e-mail address.
So, the only reason for not telling is to make it harder to guess. But it also is a valuable reason. Even when there is no rule that covers all cases.
I'm wondering what the best behavior is when a user requests a password reset for an email that doesn't exist.
Context: user is not logged in. They just enter an email and hit a reset button.
If I tell the user requesting the reset immediately that the account doesn't exist, that's both a bit of security hole and a privacy issue.
If I do nothing and it's an innocent mistake (they thought they had an account), they'll be wondering what the heck happened. Most mysterious option, least subject to abuse.
I can send an email that says a password reset has been requested but there's no account (and should be ignored blah blah blah). This seems the least noxious but it is a little subject to abuse.
Update: On further consideration, I don't really so how 1 is a big deal since they can get the same information by simply trying to sign up/use the same email ... unless I'm missing something ...
I personally would go this way:
User enters e-mail address.
Screen says "request will be processed, e-mail has been send" or something along those lines.
If there is no account linked with this e-mail address: don't send a mail, but don't tell the guy requesting.
If there is an account linked with this e-mail: send the reset e-mail including the usual "if this wasn't you simply ignore this mail, if you suspect abuse please contact $foobar"-message.
Here is why i would NOT tell anyone whether an account is linked with this e-mail address: Privacy. If you told everyone, everyone could check if $person is using $service.
Figured i would include why i wouldn't send a mail if there was no such user: Why should i? The user will probably either know which email address he used or try several at once (or only wait a short time span). Of course there are cases in which it would be a bit more userfriendly if one would send those mails, but they aren't important enough to negate the abuse potential.
There is not much abuse potential if only one website does that stuff (as long as they wouldn't send multiple mails in a short timespan), but imagine every webservice going this way. You would just have to collect a few of those services and then emailbomb someone 'you' dislike, without hitting any spamfilter!
Personally, i'm a fan of:
The user enters an email.
Whether or not the email exists, say that it has been requested, and if you do not receive an email shortly, try again or contact us.
In the email, state a password request was submitted, and if it wasn't the user, then to ignore the email.
Also,
If you're worried about bots scraping your site for emails, add a Captcha.
If you're worried about people hacking accounts, add a second layer that prompts for a secret question answer.
In my opinion the third option is the best compromise between user-friendlyness and security. Option 1 seems to be to big of a privacy issue. Using option 2 the user can not know if he has an account, but registered with another email address or if the reset system doesn't work.
I would do something like this
Ask for the username or email
If that email or username is present, send all the email to the person, with the reset password.
Finished :)
I'm in the process of creating a traditional desktop application, and I'd like to enable the user to protect the application with a password.
I was wondering what people tend to do in terms of helping the user if they can't remember the password? I don't want them to be locked out of the app entirely because of it.
If I were creating a web app, this wouldn't be an issue as a system could be put in place where an email is sent to them containing their password (after they answer a mother's maiden name type question)
I don't believe this is an option with a desktop app. The person who the end user may not want to access the application would likely know the mother's maiden name or have access to the end user's email account simply by opening Outlook.
I've searched Stack Overflow and Googled but no joy.
I assume there must be a common process used for such situations but I'm buggered if I can find it.
Or will my end user just have to suffer the consequences of their forgetfulness?
Thanks in advance.
How about just allowing a password hint, like Windows does?
P.S. You should never email a password, maybe just a one-use password or a link to reset the password.
I'm wondering what the best method is for creating a forgot password function on a website. I have seen quite a few out there, here are a few or combination of:
passphrase question / answer (1 or more)
send email with new password
on screen give new password
confirmation through email: must click link to get new password
page requiring user to enter a new password
What combination or additional steps would you add to a forgot password function? I'm wondering about how they request the new password and how they end up getting it.
I'm operating on the principal that the password cannot be retrieved; a new password must be given/generated.
Edit I like what Cory said about not displaying if the username exists, but I'm wondering what to display instead. I'm thinking half the problem is that the user forgot which email address they used, which displaying some sort of "does not exist" message is useful. Any solutions?
I personally would send an email with a link to a short term page that lets them set a new password. Make the page name some kind of UID.
If that does not appeal to you, then sending them a new password and forcing them to change it on first access would do as well.
Option 1 is far easier.
A few important security concerns:
A passphrase question / answer actually lowers security since it typically becomes the weakest link in the process. It's often easier to guess someone's answer than it is a password - particularly if questions aren't carefully chosen.
Assuming emails operate as the username in your system (which is generally recommended for a variety of reasons), the response to a password reset request shouldn't indicate whether a valid account was found. It should simply state that a password request email has been sent to the address provided. Why? A response indicating that an email does/doesn't exist allows a hacker to harvest a list of user accounts by submitting multiple password requests (typically via an HTTP proxy like burp suite) and noting whether the email is found. To protect from login harvesting you must assure no login/auth related functions provide any indication of when a valid user's email has been entered on a login/pass reset form.
For more background, checkout the Web Application Hackers Handbook. It's an excellent read on creating secure authentication models.
EDIT: Regarding the question in your edit - I'd suggest:
"A password request email has been
sent to the address you provided. If
an email doesn't arrive shortly,
please check your spam folder. If no
email arrives, then no account exists
with the email you provided."
There's a trade-off being made here between ease of use and security. You have to balance this based on context - is security important enough to you and your users to justify this inconvenience?
Send email with new password.
FORCE a password change when they arrive and key in the new password.
This ensures that the person who wanted the password will be the only only getting in to the account.
If the email is sniffed, someone could get in to the account (of course), but the real party will discover this immediately (as their password you just sent them doesn't work).
Also send confirmations of password changes to the users.
If someone get the new password, and then an email saying "thanx for changing the password", they're going to be rather puzzled and will talk to an admin if they didn't do it.
Using the email verification/password reset link will give you better security.
If you look around this is how most websites do it and people are pretty used to this verification, so I'd recommend using this type of authentication.
I would think (gbrandt's) Option 2 would be a great method if it is combined with some personal information you already have for the user. i.e date of birth.
When the user requests a new password (reset) via entering his email address, he also has to enter a correct date of birth (or something else) before the password is reset and a new one is emailed to the user.
Only those who know him well can possibly annoy him by resetting his password! It cant be a stranger or a bot
Upon 5 or 7 bad email-address & date of birth combinations the user is emailed that his password has been requested to be reset and has failed due to an incorrect credential. Then password resetting for that account is suspended for 24hrs or any desired period.
(if too many users contact the webadmin regarding this email he'll know someone is trying to maliciously attain information from your website/app)
What do you guys think?
Option 1. is not a good idea, as generally his becomes easily guessable by others. Sarah Palin's personal email (Yahoo I think) was hacked in this way by a third party.
The other options are better and previous posts have outlined the detail.
The idea I was thinking about was to sign the data in the link that is sent to the user. Then, when the user clicks the link and the server receives the call, the server also gets the encrypted part and can validate that the data was untouched.
I have implemented a JAVA project for this use case. It is on GitHub, open source. It answers your question perfectly... implemented in Java.
As for the link in the email - it generates the link, plus validates it upon usage.
There are explanation for everything (and if something is missing - let me know...)
Have a look: https://github.com/OhadR/Authentication-Flows
See a Demo here.
This is the client web-app that uses the auth-flows, with the README with all explanations. it directs you the implementation: https://github.com/OhadR/authentication-flows/tree/master/authentication-flows