Web Form Unique Identifier for CSRF Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems fail to effectively protect against cross-site request forgery (CSRF) and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, which can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information, compromising user security and privacy.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system with an application firewall that generates unique and unpredictable identifiers for web forms, embedding these identifiers in the forms, and verifying their presence upon form submission to ensure authenticity and prevent unauthorized submissions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional form submission is used without verification, then ease of operation is maintained, but security against CSRF attacks deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by embedding a unique form identifier in the form during form generation, before the form submission occurs. This pre-established identifier is then verified when the form is submitted, preventing CSRF attacks without requiring complex user actions. The identifier is automatically included in the form data and verified by the server.
2Reliability
If form identifier verification is implemented, then protection against CSRF attacks is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses an intermediary approach by introducing a form identifier as a mediator between the form generator and form processor. This identifier acts as a simple token that connects the form creation and verification processes without requiring complex cryptographic protocols or additional security infrastructure. The identifier is embedded in the form and verified through simple comparison.
3Reliability
If unique form identifiers are embedded in forms, then security against unauthorized submissions is improved, but loss of information increases due to additional data handling
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the essential security element (form identifier) from the form data and handles it separately for verification purposes. The identifier is embedded in the form but extracted and verified independently by the server, minimizing the impact on overall data processing. This extraction approach allows security verification without requiring complex analysis of the entire form data.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present solution described herein is directed towards systems and methods to prevent cross-site request forgeries based on web form verification using unique identifiers. The present solution tags each form from a server that is served out in the response with a unique and unpredictable identifier. When the form is posted, the present solution enforces that the identifier being returned is the same as the one that was served out to the user. This prevents malicious unauthorized third party users from submitting a form on a user's behalf since they cannot guess the value of this unique identifier that was inserted.