it's creating a backdoor attack on the Facebook client as well. That's why we take this so seriously."
4. Beware social engineering angle
Another way open redirectors can be abused is to send users to malicious sites. If that happened, though, Symantec's Narang said the site would have to trick the user into allowing their third-party credentials -- for example, from Facebook or Google -- to be used to log into the site. "So it involves social engineering -- that part needs to be clear," he pointed out.
While it will be up to affected sites and developers to put related fixes in place, users themselves should also beware of such attacks. "Users have to do their part too, and be cautious and skeptical," Narang said. "If you're not requesting to authenticate with ESPN's application, then you definitely shouldn't do it."
5. Developers: know your state
One way to mitigate related vulnerabilities is to restrict the URLs to which the redirector will redirect. "It's always best, if you can, to do exact URI redirect matching," Bradley advised. "The problem is, in the advice you give developers, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile."
Many web applications that rely on third-party authentication use what's called an implicit flow. That involves giving a browser client an access token after the user gives that client access. Bradley says the approach is perfectly acceptable in some scenarios, such as for JavaScript in the browser.
Otherwise, however, he recommends that developers use the more complex "code flow" approach, which involves additional API calls to further verify the authenticity of the client, and which becomes essential for ensuring security when clients maintain any type of server-side state. It also adds the ability to refresh the token and provide offline access.
Many developers, however, have used implicit flows when they should be using code flows, and many sites have allowed them to do so. (Bradley recently published OAuth guidance for developers about how to employ the right flow techniques.)
In contrast, some organizations, such as telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, allow only code flow and discard all implicit flow requests. As a result, Bradley said, the open redirector security flaws didn't affect them at all.
6. After coordinated disclosure, some sites fixed
Wang said he notified all businesses that he's listed as having vulnerable implementations of OAuth 2 or OpenID prior to making his public announcement earlier this month. "I found this vulnerability at the beginning of February and I have reported it to related companies," he said.
Google responded that it's aware of the problem and are tracking it at the moment, Wang said. Likewise, his reports were also acknowledged by Facebook, Microsoft -- which said the flaw he identified was due to a third party -- Chinese microblogging site Weibo, and LinkedIn.
Wang said Yahoo failed to respond in any way to his vulnerability warning, while Chinese online shopping site Taobao "closed my report without providing a reason." Finally, Wang said that he didn't notify other affected sites, including Russian sites VK and Mail.Ru, because he couldn't locate contact information for their security teams.
7. Fixing insecure implementations will take time
Some affected sites have already put related fixes in place. On March 13, for example -- evidently after receiving Wang's vulnerability report -- LinkedIn told developers they would have one month to register their OAuth 2 redirect URLs. "If you do not take the steps noted above by April 11, 2014, requests to authorize new members or refresh tokens will fail. We will display an error message and not redirect the member to your application," LinkedIn said.
But not every site appears willing to practice that type of tough love. Some are opting for more phased transitions. "Facebook making any type of change, because they have such a large client/developer base, if they turned on maximum security, all the people who wrote clients [that assume] weak security, they're going to break," Bradley said.
In other words, don't expect related OAuth 2 and OpenID fixes to appear overnight.
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