Web application security in Python
Base training
Monthly feed
A combination of repeated and new skills & drills for continuous learning
Platform
Web
Audience
Python developers working on Web applications
Preparedness
General Python and Web development
Standards and references
OWASP, CWE and Fortify Taxonomy
Outline
- Cyber security basics
- The OWASP Top Ten
- A01 - Broken Access Control
- A02 - Cryptographic Failures
- Cryptography
- A03 - Injection
- A04 - Insecure Design
- A05 - Security Misconfiguration
- A06 - Vulnerable and Outdated Components
- A07 - Identification and Authentication Failures
- A08 - Software and Data Integrity Failures
- A09 - Security Logging and Monitoring Failures
- A10 - Server-Side Request Forgery
- Wrap up
What you will learn
- Getting familiar with essential cyber security concepts
- Identify Web application vulnerabilities and their consequences
- Learn the security best practices in C#
- Input validation approaches and principles
- Understanding Web application security issues
- Detailed analysis of the OWASP Top Ten elements
- Putting Web application security in the context of Python
- Going beyond the low hanging fruits
Description
The course provides a comprehensive exploration of secure coding principles and practices tailored specifically for Python developers. Starting off from the foundations of cybersecurity, you will understand the consequences of insecure code by examining threats through the lens of the CIA triad.
In the main part of the material, you will systematically walk through the various vulnerabilities outlined in the OWASP Top Ten. As you progress through the modules investigating the intricacies of authentication and authorization, through realizing the practical aspects of cryptography, to tackling injection attacks, you will gain a deep understanding of both theoretical concepts and practical skills for securing Python web applications. Further subjects include error handling, code quality or denial of service, as well as XML and JSON security, and security considerations of the Python platform.
These modules go beyond just the theory. Not only do they identify vulnerabilities, show their consequences, and detail the best practices, but – through hands-on labs and real-world case studies – they offer practical experience in identifying, exploiting, and mitigating these security risks within Python-based web applications.
So that you are prepared for the forces of the dark side.
So that nothing unexpected happens in your code.
Nothing.
Note:
Note: This course content is available as an e-learning subscription. We reserve a period of 3 months to digest the foundational material, after which we activate shorter learning units on a monthly basis. This gives secure coding efforts an initial boost, and builds up sustained readiness over time. These learning units are indicated in red in the table of contents below.
They said about us
Table of contents
Cyber security basics >
- Security basics
- What is security?
- Threat and risk
- Cyber security threats
- Insecure software
- Consequences of insecure software
- Constraints and the market
- The dark side
The OWASP Top Ten >
- Introduction
- OWASP and the Top 10
- Is it a standard?
- Methodology
- The OWASP Top Ten 2021
A01 - Broken Access Control >
- Authorization
- Access control basics
- Confused deputy
- Failure to restrict URL access
- Authorization in Angular
- Authorization in React
- Lab – Failure to restrict URL access
- Insecure Direct Object Reference
- Insecure direct object reference (IDOR)
- Path traversal
- Lab – Insecure Direct Object Reference
- Path traversal best practices
- Horizontal authorization
- Authorization bypass through user-controlled keys
- Case study – Authorization bypass on Facebook
- Lab – Horizontal authorization
- File upload
- Unrestricted file upload
- Good practices
- Lab – Unrestricted file upload
- Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- Lab – Cross-site Request Forgery
- Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF) best practices
- CSRF best practices
- CSRF defense in depth
- Lab – CSRF protection with tokens
A02 - Cryptographic Failures >
- Information exposure
- Exposure through extracted data and aggregation
- Case study – Strava data exposure
- Leaking system information
- Cryptography for developers
- Cryptography basics
- Cryptography in Python
- PRNG
- Random number generation
- Pseudo random number generators (PRNGs)
- Cryptographically secure PRNGs
- Using virtual random streams
- Case study – Equifax credit account freeze
- PRNG in Python
- Weak PRNGs
- Using random numbers
- Lab – Using random numbers in Python
- Hashing
- Hashing basics
- Common hashing mistakes
- Hashing in Python
- Lab – Hashing in Python
- Encryption
- Confidentiality protection
- Symmetric encryption
- Block ciphers
- Modes of operation
- Modes of operation and IV – best practices
- Encryption in Python
- Symmetric encryption in Python
- Lab – Symmetric encryption in Python
- Asymmetric encryption
- The RSA algorithm
- Using RSA – best practices
- RSA in Python
- Combining symmetric and asymmetric algorithms
Cryptography >
- Injection problems
- Injection principles
- Injection attacks
- SQL injection
- SQL injection basics
- Lab – SQL injection
- SQL injection attack techniques
- Attack techniques
- Content-based blind SQL injection
- Time-based blind SQL injection
- SQL injection best practices
- Input validation
- Parameterized queries
- Lab – Using prepared statements
- SQL injection additional considerations
- Database defense in depth
- Case study – Hacking Fortnite accounts
- Code injection – OS command injection
- Code injection
- Code injection via input()
- OS command injection
- Lab – Command injection
- OS command injection best practices
- Avoiding command injection with the right APIs
- Lab – Command injection best practices
- Case study – Shellshock
- Lab – Shellshock
- HTML injection – Cross-site scripting (XSS)
- Cross-site scripting basics
- Persistent cross-site scripting
- Reflected cross-site scripting
- Client-side (DOM-based) cross-site scripting
- XSS attacks
- Lab – Stored XSS
- Lab – Reflected XSS
- Case study – XSS in Fortnite accounts
- XSS best practices 1
- Protection principles – escaping
- XSS protection APIs in Python
- Lab – XSS fix / stored
- XSS best practices 2
- XSS protection in Jinja2
- Lab – XSS fix / reflected
- Additional protection layers – defense in depth
- Template injection
- Script injection
- Server-side template injection (SSTI)
- Lab – Template injection
- Case study – Template injection in Shopify leading to RCE
- Client-side template injection (CSTI) in Angular
- Client-side template injection (CSTI) in React
- Input validation principles 1
- Input validation principles
- Denylists and allowlists
- Data validation techniques
- Lab – Input validation
- Input validation principles 2
- What to validate – the attack surface
- Where to validate – defense in depth
- When to validate – validation vs transformations
- Case study – Missing input validation in Upserve
- Input validation principles 3
- Output sanitization
- Encoding challenges
- Unicode challenges
- Lab – Encoding challenges
- Lab – Dealing with Unicode homoglyph attacks
- Validation with regex
- Integer handling problems
- Representing signed numbers
- Integer visualization
- Integers in Python
- Integer overflow
- Integer overflows in ctypes and numpy
- Lab – Integer problems in Python
- Other numeric problems
- Working with floating-point numbers
- Path traversal and file validation
- Path traversal
- Lab – Path traversal
- Path traversal-related examples
- Additional challenges in Windows
- Virtual resources
- Path traversal best practices
- Lab – Path canonicalization
- Native code (CFFI) issues
- Native code dependence
- Lab – Unsafe native code
- Best practices for dealing with native code
A03 - Injection >
- Insecure design
- The STRIDE model of threats
- Secure design principles of Saltzer and Schroeder
- Insecure design – Saltzer and Schroeder 1
- Economy of mechanism
- Fail-safe defaults
- Complete mediation
- Open design
- Insecure design – Saltzer and Schroeder 2
- Separation of privilege
- Least privilege
- Least common mechanism
- Psychological acceptability
- Client-side security
- Same Origin Policy
- Simple request
- Preflight request
- Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
- Clickjacking
- Frame sandboxing
- Cross-Frame Scripting (XFS) attacks
- Lab – Clickjacking
- Clickjacking beyond hijacking a click
- Anti-clickjacking best practices
- Clickjacking protection best practices
- Lab – Using CSP to prevent clickjacking
A04 - Insecure Design >
- Misconfiguration and XML parsing
- Configuration principles
- XML Entities
- DTD and the entities
- Entity expansion
- XML External Entity (XXE)
- File inclusion with external entities
- Server-Side Request Forgery with external entities
- Lab – External entity attack
- Case study – XXE vulnerability in SAP Store
- XXE best practices
- Preventing XXE
- Lab – Prohibiting DTD
A05 - Security Misconfiguration >
- Vulnerable components and dependencies
- Using vulnerable components
- Assessing the environment
- Hardening
- Untrusted functionality import
- Malicious packages in Python
- Vulnerability management
- Patch management
- Vulnerability databases
- Lab – Finding vulnerabilities in third-party components
A06 - Vulnerable and Outdated Components >
- Authentication
- Authentication basics
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Authentication weaknesses
- Case study – PayPal 2FA bypass
- Session security
- Session management essentials
- Why do we protect session IDs – Session hijacking
- Session fixation
- Session ID best practices
- Password management
- Storing account passwords
- Password in transit
- Lab – Is just hashing passwords enough?
- Password storage
- Dictionary attacks and brute forcing
- Salting
- Adaptive hash functions for password storage
- Lab – Using adaptive hash functions in Python
- Password policy
- Password storage – a case study
- Case study – The Ashley Madison data breach
- The dictionary attack
- The ultimate crack
- Exploitation and the lessons learned
- Additional password management challenges
- Password database migration
- (Mis)handling None passwords
- Password auditing
- Using password cracking tools
- Password cracking in Windows
- Lab – Password audit with John the Ripper
- On-line password brute forcing
- Lab – On-line password brute forcing
- Password recovery issues
- Password recovery best practices
- Lab – Password reset weakness
- Outbound password management
- Hard coded passwords
- Best practices
- Lab – Hardcoded password
- Case study – Hard-coded Telnet password in TOTOLINK T8
- Protecting secrets in memory
- Challenges in protecting memory
A07 - Identification and Authentication Failures >
- Integrity protection and MAC
- Integrity protection
- Message Authentication Code (MAC)
- Calculating HMAC in Python
- Lab – Calculating MAC in Python
- Digital signatures
- Digital signature
- Digital signature with RSA
- ECC basics
- Digital signature with ECC
- Lab – Digital signature with ECDSA in Python
- Subresource integrity
- Importing JavaScript
- Lab – Importing JavaScript
- Case study – The British Airways data breach
- Insecure deserialization
- Serialization and deserialization challenges
- Integrity – deserializing untrusted streams
- Deserialization with pickle
- Lab – Deserializing with Pickle
- PyYAML deserialization challenges
- Integrity – deserialization best practices
A08 - Software and Data Integrity Failures >
- Logging
- Logging and monitoring principles
- Insufficient logging
- Case study – Plaintext passwords at Facebook
- Logging best practices
- Log forging
- CRLF injection
- Lab – Log forging
- Log forging – best practices
- Monitoring
- Monitoring best practices
- Firewalls and Web Application Firewalls (WAF)
- Intrusion detection and prevention
- Case study – The Marriott Starwood data breach
Cryptography >
- SSRF
- Server-side Request Forgery (SSRF)
- Case study – SSRF and the Capital One breach
A09 - Security Logging and Monitoring Failures >
- Introduction
- Time and state
- Race conditions
- Time of check to time of usage – TOCTTOU
- TOCTTOU attacks in practice
- Lab – TOCTTOU
- Insecure temporary file
- Thread safety and the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL)
- Avoiding race conditions in Python
- Case study: TOCTTOU in Calamares (CVE-2019-13178)
- Locking and deadlocks
- Mutual exclusion and locking
- Deadlocks
- Synchronization and thread safety
A10 - Server-Side Request Forgery >
- Principles
- Error and exception handling principles
- Information exposure through error reporting
- Information leakage via error pages
- Lab – Flask information leakage
- Returning a misleading status code
- Exception handling
- In the except block. And now what?
- Empty except block
- Lab – Exception handling mess
Time and state >
- Flooding
- Resource exhaustion
Error handling >
- Sustained client engagement
- Infinite loop
- Case study – DoS against Tesla GUI via malicious web page
- Economic Denial of Sustainability (EDoS)
- Amplification
- Some amplification examples
- Algorithmic complexity issues
- Regular expression denial of service (ReDoS)
- Lab – ReDoS
- Dealing with ReDoS
- Hash table collision
- How do hash tables work?
- Hash collision against hash tables
Denial of service >
- JSON validation
- JSON injection
- Dangers of JSONP
- JSON/JavaScript hijacking
- Best practices
- Case study – ReactJS vulnerability in HackerOne
JSON security >
- XML validation
- XML injection
- XPath injection
- Blind XPath injection
- XSLT injection
- XQuery injection
- XML signature
- XML signature wrapping
- Case study – signature wrapping in single sign-on solutions
- XML encryption
- XML encryption wrapping
XML security >
- The Python ecosystem and its attack surface
- Python bytecode and security
- Security features offered by Python
- PEP 578 and audit hooks
- The difficulties of sandboxing untrusted code
- Sandboxing Python
Python platform security >
- Software security principles
- Principles of robust programming by Matt Bishop
- Sources and further readings
- Software security sources and further reading
- Python resources
Pricing
1 year subscription license
599 EUR / person
- E-learning subscription for sustained readiness
- Discussion and insight into the hacker’s mindset
- Hands-on practice, lab exercises using live drills
- Case studies based on high-profile hacks
Customized course
Tailor a course to your preferences
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- Include your contact information
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Inquiry
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Related Courses
Security testing Python Web applications
CYDWebPyTst3d
3 days
>
Audience
Python developers and testers working on Web applications
Group size
12 participants
Labs
Hands-on
Description
Your Web application written in Python is tested functionally, so you are done, right? But did you consider feeding in incorrect values? 16Gbs of data? A null? An apostrophe? Negative numbers, or specifically -1 or -2^31? Because that’s what the bad guys will do – and the list is far from complete.
Testing for security needs a remarkable software security expertise and a healthy level of paranoia, and this is what this course provides: a strong emotional engagement by lots of hands-on labs and stories from real life.
The curriculum goes through the common Web application security issues following the OWASP Top Ten but goes far beyond it both in coverage and the details.A special focus is given to finding all discussed issues during testing, and an overview is provided on security testing methodology, techniques and tools.
So that you are prepared for the forces of the dark side.
So that nothing unexpected happens.
Nothing.
Outline
- Cyber security basics
- The OWASP Top Ten 2021
- Security testing
- Wrap up
What you will learn
- Getting familiar with essential cyber security concepts
- Understanding Web application security issues
- Detailed analysis of the OWASP Top Ten elements
- Putting Web application security in the context of Python
- Going beyond the low hanging fruits
- Input validation approaches and principles
- Understanding security testing methodology and approaches
- Managing vulnerabilities in third party components
- Getting familiar with security testing techniques and tools