Web Authorization Protocol T. Lodderstedt
Internet-Draft yes.com
Intended status: Best Current Practice J. Bradley
Expires: 1 July 2019 Yubico
A. Labunets
Facebook
D. Fett
yes.com
28 December 2018
OAuth 2.0 Security Best Current Practice
draft-ietf-oauth-security-topics-11
Abstract
This document describes best current security practice for OAuth 2.0.
It updates and extends the OAuth 2.0 Security Threat Model to
incorporate practical experiences gathered since OAuth 2.0 was
published and covers new threats relevant due to the broader
application of OAuth 2.0.
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 1 July 2019.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Recommendations
2.1. Protecting Redirect-Based Flows
2.1.1. Authorization Code Grant
2.1.2. Implicit Grant
2.2. Token Replay Prevention
2.3. Access Token Privilege Restriction
3. Attacks and Mitigations
3.1. Insufficient Redirect URI Validation
3.1.1. Attacks on Authorization Code Grant
3.1.2. Attacks on Implicit Grant
3.1.3. Proposed Countermeasures
3.2. Credential Leakage via Referrer Headers
3.2.1. Leakage from the OAuth client
3.2.2. Leakage from the Authorization Server
3.2.3. Consequences
3.2.4. Proposed Countermeasures
3.3. Attacks through the Browser History
3.3.1. Code in Browser History
3.3.2. Access Token in Browser History
3.4. Mix-Up
3.4.1. Attack Description
3.4.2. Countermeasures
3.5. Authorization Code Injection
3.5.1. Proposed Countermeasures
3.6. Access Token Injection
3.6.1. Proposed Countermeasures
3.7. Cross Site Request Forgery
3.7.1. Proposed Countermeasures
3.8. Access Token Leakage at the Resource Server
3.8.1. Access Token Phishing by Counterfeit
Resource Server
3.8.2. Compromised Resource Server
3.9. Open Redirection
3.9.1. Authorization Server as Open Redirector
3.9.2. Clients as Open Redirector
3.10. 307 Redirect
3.11. TLS Terminating Reverse Proxies
3.12. Refresh Token Protection
4. Acknowledgements
5. IANA Considerations
6. Security Considerations
7. Normative References
Appendix A. Document History
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
It's been a while since OAuth has been published in [RFC6749] and
[RFC6750]. Since publication, OAuth 2.0 has gotten massive traction
in the market and became the standard for API protection and, as
foundation of OpenID Connect [OpenID], identity providing. While
OAuth was used in a variety of scenarios and different kinds of
deployments, the following challenges could be observed:
* OAuth implementations are being attacked through known
implementation weaknesses and anti-patterns (CSRF, referrer
header). Although most of these threats are discussed in the
OAuth 2.0 Threat Model and Security Considerations [RFC6819],
continued exploitation demonstrates there may be a need for more
specific recommendations or that the existing mitigations are too
difficult to deploy.
* Technology has changed, e.g., the way browsers treat fragments in
some situations, which may change the implicit grant's underlying
security model.
* OAuth is used in much more dynamic setups than originally
anticipated, creating new challenges with respect to security.
Those challenges go beyond the original scope of [RFC6749],
[RFC6749], and [RFC6819].
OAuth initially assumed a static relationship between client,
authorization server and resource servers. The URLs of AS and RS
were known to the client at deployment time and built an anchor for
the trust relationship among those parties. The validation whether
the client talks to a legitimate server was based on TLS server
authentication (see [RFC6819], Section 4.5.4). With the increasing
adoption of OAuth, this simple model dissolved and, in several
scenarios, was replaced by a dynamic establishment of the
relationship between clients on one side and the authorization and
resource servers of a particular deployment on the other side. This
way the same client could be used to access services of different
providers (in case of standard APIs, such as e-Mail or OpenID
Connect) or serves as a frontend to a particular tenant in a multi-
tenancy. Extensions of OAuth, such as [RFC7591] and [RFC8414] were
developed in order to support the usage of OAuth in dynamic
scenarios. As a challenge to the community, such usage scenarios
open up new attack angles, which are discussed in this document.
The remainder of the document is organized as follows: The next
section summarizes the most important recommendations of the OAuth
working group for every OAuth implementor. Afterwards, a detailed
analysis of the threats and implementation issues which can be found
in the wild today is given along with a discussion of potential
countermeasures.
2. Recommendations
This section describes the set of security mechanisms the OAuth
working group recommendeds to OAuth implementers.
2.1. Protecting Redirect-Based Flows
Authorization servers MUST utilize exact matching of client redirect
URIs against pre-registered URIs. This measure contributes to the
prevention of leakage of authorization codes and access tokens
(depending on the grant type). It also helps to detect mix-up
attacks.
Clients SHOULD avoid forwarding the user's browser to a URI obtained
from a query parameter since such a function could be utilized to
exfiltrate authorization codes and access tokens. If there is a
strong need for this kind of redirects, clients are advised to
implement appropriate countermeasures against open redirection, e.g.,
as described by the OWASP [owasp].
Clients MUST prevent CSRF and ensure that each authorization response
is only accepted once. One-time use CSRF tokens carried in the
"state" parameter, which are securely bound to the user agent, SHOULD
be used for that purpose.
In order to prevent mix-up attacks, clients MUST only process
redirect responses of the OAuth authorization server they send the
respective request to and from the same user agent this authorization
request was initiated with. Clients MUST memorize which
authorization server they sent an authorization request to and bind
this information to the user agent and ensure any sub-sequent
messages are sent to the same authorization server. Clients SHOULD
use AS-specific redirect URIs as a means to identify the AS a
particular response came from.
Note: [I-D.bradley-oauth-jwt-encoded-state] gives advice on how to
implement CSRF prevention and AS matching using signed JWTs in the
"state" parameter.
2.1.1. Authorization Code Grant
Clients utilizing the authorization grant type MUST use PKCE
[RFC7636] in order to (with the help of the authorization server)
detect and prevent attempts to inject (replay) authorization codes
into the authorization response. The PKCE challenges must be
transaction-specific and securely bound to the user agent in which
the transaction was started. OpenID Connect clients MAY use the
"nonce" parameter of the OpenID Connect authentication request as
specified in [OpenID] in conjunction with the corresponding ID Token
claim for the same purpose.
Note: although PKCE so far was recommended as a mechanism to protect
native apps, this advice applies to all kinds of OAuth clients,
including web applications.
Authorization servers MUST bind authorization codes to a certain
client and authenticate it using an appropriate mechanism (e.g.
client credentials or PKCE).
Authorization servers SHOULD furthermore consider the recommendations
given in [RFC6819], Section 4.4.1.1, on authorization code replay
prevention.
2.1.2. Implicit Grant
The implicit grant (response type "token") and other response types
causing the authorization server to issue access tokens in the
authorization response are vulnerable to access token leakage and
access token replay as described in Section 3.1, Section 3.2,
Section 3.3, and Section 3.6.
Moreover, no viable mechanism exists to cryptographically bind access
tokens issued in the authorization response to a certain client as it
is recommended in Section 2.2. This makes replay detection for such
access tokens at resource servers impossible.
In order to avoid these issues, clients SHOULD NOT use the implicit
grant (response type "token") or any other response type issuing
access tokens in the authorization response, such as "token id_token"
and "code token id_token", unless the issued access tokens are
sender-constrained and access token injection in the authorization
response is prevented.
A sender constrained access token scopes the applicability of an
access token to a certain sender. This sender is obliged to
demonstrate knowledge of a certain secret as prerequisite for the
acceptance of that token at the recipient (e.g., a resource server).
Clients SHOULD instead use the response type "code" (aka
authorization code grant type) as specified in Section 2.1.1 or any
other response type that causes the authorization server to issue
access tokens in the token response. This allows the authorization
server to detect replay attempts and generally reduces the attack
surface since access tokens are not exposed in URLs. It also allows
the authorization server to sender-constrain the issued tokens.
2.2. Token Replay Prevention
Authorization servers SHOULD use TLS-based methods for sender
constrained access tokens as described in Section 3.8.1.2, such as
token binding [I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding] or Mutual TLS for OAuth
2.0 [I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls] in order to prevent token replay. It is
also recommended to use end-to-end TLS whenever possible.
2.3. Access Token Privilege Restriction
The privileges associated with an access token SHOULD be restricted
to the minimum required for the particular application or use case.
This prevents clients from exceeding the privileges authorized by the
resource owner. It also prevents users from exceeding their
privileges authorized by the respective security policy. Privilege
restrictions also limit the impact of token leakage although more
effective counter-measures are described in Section 2.2.
In particular, access tokens SHOULD be restricted to certain resource
servers, preferably to a single resource server. To put this into
effect, the authorization server associates the access token with
certain resource servers and every resource server is obliged to
verify for every request, whether the access token sent with that
request was meant to be used for that particular resource server. If
not, the resource server MUST refuse to serve the respective request.
Clients and authorization servers MAY utilize the parameters "scope"
or "resource" as specified in [RFC6749] and [I-D.ietf-oauth-resource-
indicators], respectively, to determine the resource server they want
to access.
Additionally, access tokens SHOULD be restricted to certain resources
and actions on resource servers or resources. To put this into
effect, the authorization server associates the access token with the
respective resource and actions and every resource server is obliged
to verify for every request, whether the access token sent with that
request was meant to be used for that particular action on the
particular resource. If not, the resource server must refuse to
serve the respective request. Clients and authorization servers MAY
utilize the parameter "scope" as specified in [RFC6749] to determine
those resources and/or actions.
3. Attacks and Mitigations
This section gives a detailed description of attacks on OAuth
implementations, along with potential countermeasures. This section
complements and enhances the description given in [RFC6819].
3.1. Insufficient Redirect URI Validation
Some authorization servers allow clients to register redirect URI
patterns instead of complete redirect URIs. In those cases, the
authorization server, at runtime, matches the actual redirect URI
parameter value at the authorization endpoint against this pattern.
This approach allows clients to encode transaction state into
additional redirect URI parameters or to register just a single
pattern for multiple redirect URIs. As a downside, it turned out to
be more complex to implement and error prone to manage than exact
redirect URI matching. Several successful attacks have been observed
in the wild, which utilized flaws in the pattern matching
implementation or concrete configurations. Such a flaw effectively
breaks client identification or authentication (depending on grant
and client type) and allows the attacker to obtain an authorization
code or access token, either:
* by directly sending the user agent to a URI under the attackers
control or
* by exposing the OAuth credentials to an attacker by utilizing an
open redirector at the client in conjunction with the way user
agents handle URL fragments.
3.1.1. Attacks on Authorization Code Grant
For a public client using the grant type code, an attack would look
as follows:
Let's assume the redirect URL pattern "https://_.somesite.example/_"
had been registered for the client "s6BhdRkqt3". This pattern allows
redirect URIs pointing to any host residing in the domain
somesite.example. So if an attacker manages to establish a host or
subdomain in somesite.example he can impersonate the legitimate
client. Assume the attacker sets up the host
"evil.somesite.example".
1. The attacker needs to trick the user into opening a tampered URL
in his browser, which launches a page under the attacker's
control, say "https://www.evil.example"
(https://www.evil.example").
This URL initiates an authorization request with the client id of
a legitimate client to the authorization endpoint. This is the
example authorization request (line breaks are for display
purposes only):
GET /authorize?response_type=code&client_id=s6BhdRkqt3&state=xyz
&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fevil.somesite.example%2Fcb HTTP/1.1
Host: server.somesite.example
2. The authorization server validates the redirect URI in order to
identify the client. Since the pattern allows arbitrary domains
host names in "somesite.example", the authorization request is
processed under the legitimate client's identity. This includes
the way the request for user consent is presented to the user.
If auto-approval is allowed (which is not recommended for public
clients according to [RFC6749]), the attack can be performed even
easier.
If the user does not recognize the attack, the code is issued and
directly sent to the attacker's client.
Since the attacker impersonated a public client, it can directly
exchange the code for tokens at the respective token endpoint.
Note: This attack will not directly work for confidential clients,
since the code exchange requires authentication with the legitimate
client's secret. The attacker will need to impersonate or utilize
the legitimate client to redeem the code (e.g., by performing a code
injection attack). This kind of injections is covered in
Section 3.5.
3.1.2. Attacks on Implicit Grant
The attack described above works for the implicit grant as well. If
the attacker is able to send the authorization response to a URI
under his control, he will directly get access to the fragment
carrying the access token.
Additionally, implicit clients can be subject to a further kind of
attacks. It utilizes the fact that user agents re-attach fragments
to the destination URL of a redirect if the location header does not
contain a fragment (see [RFC7231], Section 9.5). The attack
described here combines this behavior with the client as an open
redirector in order to get access to access tokens. This allows
circumvention even of strict redirect URI patterns (but not strict
URL matching!).
Assume the pattern for client "s6BhdRkqt3" is
"https://client.somesite.example/cb?*", i.e., any parameter is
allowed for redirects to "https://client.somesite.example/cb".
Unfortunately, the client exposes an open redirector. This endpoint
supports a parameter "redirect_to" which takes a target URL and will
send the browser to this URL using an HTTP Location header redirect
303.
1. Same as above, the attacker needs to trick the user into opening
a tampered URL in his browser, which launches a page under the
attacker's control, say "https://www.evil.example".
2. The URL initiates an authorization request, which is very similar
to the attack on the code flow. As differences, it utilizes the
open redirector by encoding
"redirect_to=https://client.evil.example" into the redirect URI
and it uses the response type "token" (line breaks are for
display purposes only):
GET /authorize?response_type=token&client_id=s6BhdRkqt3&state=xyz
&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fclient.somesite.example%2Fcb%26redirect_to
%253Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fclient.evil.example%252Fcb HTTP/1.1
Host: server.somesite.example
3. Since the redirect URI matches the registered pattern, the
authorization server allows the request and sends the resulting
access token with a 303 redirect (some response parameters are
omitted for better readability)
HTTP/1.1 303 See Other
Location: https://client.somesite.example/cb?
redirect_to%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fclient.evil.example%2Fcb
#access_token=2YotnFZFEjr1zCsicMWpAA&...
4. At example.com, the request arrives at the open redirector. It
will read the redirect parameter and will issue an HTTP 303
Location header redirect to the URL "https://client.evil.example/
cb".
HTTP/1.1 303 See Other
Location: https://client.evil.example/cb
5. Since the redirector at client.somesite.example does not include
a fragment in the Location header, the user agent will re-attach
the original fragment
"#access_token=2YotnFZFEjr1zCsicMWpAA&..." to the URL and
will navigate to the following URL:
https://client.evil.example/cb#access_token=2YotnFZFEjr1zCsicMWpAA&...
6. The attacker's page at client.evil.example can access the
fragment and obtain the access token.
3.1.3. Proposed Countermeasures
The complexity of implementing and managing pattern matching
correctly obviously causes security issues. This document therefore
proposes to simplify the required logic and configuration by using
exact redirect URI matching only. This means the authorization
server must compare the two URIs using simple string comparison as
defined in [RFC3986], Section 6.2.1..
Additional recommendations:
* Servers on which callbacks are hosted must not expose open
redirectors (see (#Open.Redirection)).
* Clients MAY drop fragments via intermediary URLs with "fix
fragments" (see [fb_fragments]) to prevent the user agent from
appending any unintended fragments.
* Clients SHOULD use the authorization code response type instead of
response types causing access token issuance at the authorization
endpoint. This offers countermeasures against reuse of leaked
credentials through the exchange process with the authorization
server and token replay through certificate binding of the access
tokens.
As an alternative to exact redirect URI matching, the AS could also
authenticate clients, e.g., using [I-D.ietf-oauth-jwsreq].
3.2. Credential Leakage via Referrer Headers
Authorization codes or values of "state" can unintentionally be
disclosed to attackers through the referrer header, by leaking either
from a client's web site or from an AS's web site. Note: even if
specified otherwise in [RFC2616], section 14.36, the same may happen
to access tokens conveyed in URI fragments due to browser
implementation issues as illustrated by Chromium Issue 168213
[bug.chromium].
3.2.1. Leakage from the OAuth client
This requires that the client, as a result of a successful
authorization request, renders a page that
* contains links to other pages under the attacker's control (ads,
faq, ...) and a user clicks on such a link, or
* includes third-party content (iframes, images, etc.) for example
if the page contains user-generated content (blog).
As soon as the browser navigates to the attacker's page or loads the
third-party content, the attacker receives the authorization response
URL and can extract "code", "access token", or "state".
3.2.2. Leakage from the Authorization Server
In a similar way, an attacker can learn "state" if the authorization
endpoint at the authorization server contains links or third-party
content as above.
3.2.3. Consequences
An attacker that learns a valid code or access token through a
referrer header can perform the attacks as described in
Section 3.1.1, Section 3.5, and Section 3.6. If the attacker learns
"state", the CSRF protection achieved by using "state" is lost,
resulting in CSRF attacks as described in [RFC6819],
Section 4.4.1.8..
3.2.4. Proposed Countermeasures
The page rendered as a result of the OAuth authorization response and
the authorization endpoint SHOULD not include third-party resources
or links to external sites.
The following measures further reduce the chances of a successful
attack:
* Bind authorization code to a confidential client or PKCE
challenge. In this case, the attacker lacks the secret to request
the code exchange.
* Authorization codes SHOULD be invalidated by the AS after their
first use at the token endpoint. For example, if an AS
invalidated the code after the legitimate client redeemed it, the
attacker would fail exchanging this code later. (This does not
mitigate the attack if the attacker manages to exchange the code
for a token before the legitimate client does so.)
* The "state" value SHOULD be invalidated by the client after its
first use at the redirection endpoint. If this is implemented,
and an attacker receives a token through the referrer header from
the client's web site, the "state" was already used, invalidated
by the client and cannot be used again by the attacker. (This
does not help if the state leaks from
the AS's web site, since then the state has not been used at the redirection
endpoint at the client yet.)
* Suppress the referrer header by adding the attribute
"rel="noreferrer"" to HTML links or by applying an appropriate
Referrer Policy [webappsec-referrer-policy] to the document
(either as part of the "referrer" meta attribute or by setting a
Referrer-Policy header).
* Use authorization code instead of response types causing access
token issuance from the authorization endpoint. This provides
countermeasures against leakage on the OAuth protocol level
through the code exchange process with the authorization server.
* Additionally, one might use the form post response mode instead of
redirect for authorization response (see [oauth-v2-form-post-
response-mode]).
3.3. Attacks through the Browser History
Authorization codes and access tokens can end up in the browser's
history of visited URLs, enabling the attacks described in the
following.
3.3.1. Code in Browser History
When a browser navigates to "client.example/
redirection_endpoint?code=abcd" as a result of a redirect from a
provider's authorization endpoint, the URL including the
authorization code may end up in the browser's history. An attacker
with access to the device could obtain the code and try to replay it.
Proposed countermeasures:
* Authorization code replay prevention as described in [RFC6819],
Section 4.4.1.1, and Section 3.5
* Use form post response mode instead of redirect for authorization
response (see [oauth-v2-form-post-response-mode])
3.3.2. Access Token in Browser History
An access token may end up in the browser history if a a client or
just a web site, which already has a token, deliberately navigates to
a page like "provider.com/get_user_profile?access_token=abcdef.".
Actually [RFC6750] discourages this practice and asks to transfer
tokens via a header, but in practice web sites often just pass access
token in query parameters.
In case of implicit grant, a URL like "client.example/
redirection_endpoint#access_token=abcdef" may also end up in the
browser history as a result of a redirect from a provider's
authorization endpoint.
Proposed countermeasures:
* Replace implicit flow with postmessage communication or the
authorization code grant
* Never pass access tokens in URL query parameters
3.4. Mix-Up
Mix-up is an attack on scenarios where an OAuth client interacts with
multiple authorization servers, as is usually the case when dynamic
registration is used. The goal of the attack is to obtain an
authorization code or an access token by tricking the client into
sending those credentials to the attacker instead of using them at
the respective endpoint at the authorization/resource server.
3.4.1. Attack Description
For a detailed attack description, refer to [arXiv.1601.01229] and
[I-D.ietf-oauth-mix-up-mitigation]. The description here closely
follows [arXiv.1601.01229], with variants of the attack outlined
below.
Preconditions: For the attack to work, we assume that
* the implicit or authorization code grant are used with multiple AS
of which one is considered "honest" (H-AS) and one is operated by
the attacker (A-AS),
* the client stores the AS chosen by the user in a session bound to
the user's browser and uses the same redirection endpoint URI for
each AS, and
* the attacker can manipulate the first request/response pair from a
user's browser to the client (in which the user selects a certain
AS and is then redirected by the client to that AS).
Some of the attack variants described below require different
preconditions.
In the following, we assume that the client is registered with H-AS
(URI: "https://honest.as.example" (https://honest.as.example"),
client id: 7ZGZldHQ) and with A-AS (URI: "https://attacker.example"
(https://attacker.example"), client id: 666RVZJTA).
Attack on the authorization code grant:
1. The user selects to start the grant using H-AS (e.g., by clicking
on a button at the client's website).
2. The attacker intercepts this request and changes the user's
selection to "A-AS".
3. The client stores in the user's session that the user selected
"A-AS" and redirects the user to A-AS's authorization endpoint by
sending the following response:
HTTP/1.1 303 See Other
Location: https://attacker.example/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=666RVZJTA
4. Now the attacker intercepts this response and changes the
redirection such that the user is being redirected to H-AS. The
attacker also replaces the client id of the client at A-AS with
the client's id at H-AS, resulting in the following response
being sent to the browser:
HTTP/1.1 303 See Other
Location: https://honest.as.example/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=7ZGZldHQ
5. Now, the user authorizes the client to access her resources at
H-AS. H-AS issues a code and sends it (via the browser) back to
the client.
6. Since the client still assumes that the code was issued by A-AS,
it will try to redeem the code at A-AS's token endpoint.
7. The attacker therefore obtains code and can either exchange the
code for an access token (for public clients) or perform a code
injection attack as described in Section 3.5.
Variants:
* *Implicit Grant*: In the implicit grant, the attacker receives an
access token instead of the code; the rest of the attack works as
above.
* *Mix-Up Without Interception*: A variant of the above attack works
even if the first request/response pair cannot be intercepted (for
example, because TLS is used to protect these messages): Here, we
assume that the user wants to start the grant using A-AS (and not
H-AS). After the client redirected the user to the authorization
endpoint at A-AS, the attacker immediately redirects the user to
H-AS (changing the client id "7ZGZldHQ"). (A vigilant user might
at this point detect that she intended to use A-AS instead of
H-AS.) The attack now proceeds exactly as in step of the
attack description above.
* *Per-AS Redirect URIs*: If clients use different redirect URIs for
different ASs, do not store the selected AS in the user's session,
and ASs do not check the redirect URIs properly, attackers can
mount an attack called "Cross-Social Network Request Forgery".
Refer to [oauth_security_jcs_14] for details.
* *OpenID Connect*: There are several variants that can be used to
attack OpenID Connect. They are described in detail in
[arXiv.1704.08539], Appendix A, and [arXiv.1508.04324v2],
Section 6 ("Malicious Endpoints Attacks").
3.4.2. Countermeasures
In scenarios where an OAuth client interacts with multiple
authorization servers, clients MUST prevent mix-up attacks.
Potential countermeasures:
* Configure authorization servers to return an AS identitifier
("iss") and the "client_id" for which a code or token was issued
in the authorization response. This enables clients to compare
this data to their own client id and the "iss" identifier of the
AS it believed it sent the user agent to. This mitigation is
discussed in detail in [I-D.ietf-oauth-mix-up-mitigation]. In
OpenID Connect, if an ID token is returned in the authorization
response, it carries client id and issuer. It can be used for
this mitigation.
* As it can be seen in the preconditions of the attacks above,
clients can prevent mix-up attack by (1) using AS-specific
redirect URIs with exact redirect URI matching, (2) storing, for
each authorization request, the intended AS, and (3) comparing the
intended AS with the actual redirect URI where the authorization
response was received.
3.5. Authorization Code Injection
In such an attack, the adversary attempts to inject a stolen
authorization code into a legitimate client on a device under his
control. In the simplest case, the attacker would want to use the
code in his own client. But there are situations where this might
not be possible or intended. Examples are:
* The attacker wants to access certain functions in this particular
client. As an example, the attacker wants to impersonate his
victim in a certain app or on a certain web site.
* The code is bound to a particular confidential client and the
attacker is unable to obtain the required client credentials to
redeem the code himself.
* The authorization or resource servers are limited to certain
networks, the attackers is unable to access directly.
How does an attack look like?
1. The attacker obtains an authorization code by performing any of
the attacks described above.
2. It performs a regular OAuth authorization process with the
legitimate client on his device.
3. The attacker injects the stolen authorization code in the
response of the authorization server to the legitimate client.
4. The client sends the code to the authorization server's token
endpoint, along with client id, client secret and actual
"redirect_uri".
5. The authorization server checks the client secret, whether the
code was issued to the particular client and whether the actual
redirect URI matches the "redirect_uri" parameter (see
[RFC6749]).
6. If all checks succeed, the authorization server issues access and
other tokens to the client, so now the attacker is able to
impersonate the legitimate user.
Obviously, the check in step (5.) will fail, if the code was issued
to another client id, e.g., a client set up by the attacker. The
check will also fail if the authorization code was already redeemed
by the legitimate user and was one-time use only.
An attempt to inject a code obtained via a malware pretending to be
the legitimate client should also be detected, if the authorization
server stored the complete redirect URI used in the authorization
request and compares it with the redirect_uri parameter.
[RFC6749], Section 4.1.3, requires the AS to "... ensure that the
"redirect_uri" parameter is present if the "redirect_uri" parameter
was included in the initial authorization request as described in
Section 4.1.1, and if included ensure that their values are
identical.". In the attack scenario described above, the legitimate
client would use the correct redirect URI it always uses for
authorization requests. But this URI would not match the tampered
redirect URI used by the attacker (otherwise, the redirect would not
land at the attackers page). So the authorization server would
detect the attack and refuse to exchange the code.
Note: this check could also detect attempt to inject a code, which
had been obtained from another instance of the same client on another
device, if certain conditions are fulfilled:
* the redirect URI itself needs to contain a nonce or another kind
of one-time use, secret data and
* the client has bound this data to this particular instance.
But this approach conflicts with the idea to enforce exact redirect
URI matching at the authorization endpoint. Moreover, it has been
observed that providers very often ignore the redirect_uri check
requirement at this stage, maybe because it doesn't seem to be
security-critical from reading the spec.
Other providers just pattern match the redirect_uri parameter against
the registered redirect URI pattern. This saves the authorization
server from storing the link between the actual redirect URI and the
respective authorization code for every transaction. But this kind
of check obviously does not fulfill the intent of the spec, since the
tampered redirect URI is not considered. So any attempt to inject a
code obtained using the "client_id" of a legitimate client or by
utilizing the legitimate client on another device won't be detected
in the respective deployments.
It is also assumed that the requirements defined in [RFC6749],
Section 4.1.3, increase client implementation complexity as clients
need to memorize or re-construct the correct redirect URI for the
call to the tokens endpoint.
This document therefore recommends to instead bind every
authorization code to a certain client instance on a certain device
(or in a certain user agent) in the context of a certain transaction.
3.5.1. Proposed Countermeasures
There are multiple technical solutions to achieve this goal:
* *Nonce*: OpenID Connect's existing "nonce" parameter could be used
for this purpose. The nonce value is one-time use and created by
the client. The client is supposed to bind it to the user agent
session and sends it with the initial request to the OpenId
Provider (OP). The OP associates the nonce to the authorization
code and attests this binding in the ID token, which is issued as
part of the code exchange at the token endpoint. If an attacker
injected an authorization code in the authorization response, the
nonce value in the client session and the nonce value in the ID
token will not match and the attack is detected. The assumption
is that an attacker cannot get hold of the user agent state on the
victims device, where he has stolen the respective authorization
code. The main advantage of this option is that Nonce is an
existing feature used in the wild. On the other hand, leveraging
Nonce by the broader OAuth community would require AS and client
to adopt ID Tokens.
* *Code-bound State*: The "state" parameter as specified in
[RFC6749] could be used similarly to what is described above.
This would require to add a further parameter "state" to the code
exchange token endpoint request. The authorization server would
then compare the "state" value it associated with the code and the
"state" value in the parameter. If those values do not match, it
is considered an attack and the request fails. The advantage of
this approach would be to utilize an existing OAuth parameter.
But it would also mean to re-interpret the purpose of "state" and
to extend the token endpoint request.
* *PKCE*: The PKCE parameter "challenge" along with the
corresponding "verifier" as specified in [RFC7636] could be used
in the same way as "nonce" or "state". In contrast to its
original intention, the verifier check would fail although the
client uses its correct verifier but the code is associated with a
challenge, which does not match. PKCE is a deployed OAuth
feature, even though it is used today to secure native apps, only.
* *Token Binding*: Token binding [I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding]
could also be used. In this case, the code would need to be bound
to two legs, between user agent and AS and the user agent and the
client. This requires further data (extension to response) to
manifest binding id for particular code. Token binding is
promising as a secure and convenient mechanism (due to its browser
integration). As a challenge, it requires broad browser support
and use with native apps is still under discussion.
* *per instance client id/secret*: One could use per instance
"client_id" and secrets and bind the code to the respective
"client_id". Unfortunately, this does not fit into the web
application programming model (would need to use per user client
ids).
PKCE seems to be the most obvious solution for OAuth clients as it
available and effectively used today for similar purposes for OAuth
native apps whereas "nonce" is appropriate for OpenId Connect
clients.
Note on pre-warmed secrets: An attacker can circumvent the
countermeasures described above if he is able to create or capture
the respective secret or code_challenge on a device under his
control, which is then used in the victim's authorization request.
Exact redirect URI matching of authorization requests can prevent the
attacker from using the pre-warmed secret in the faked authorization
transaction on the victim's device.
Unfortunately, it does not work for all kinds of OAuth clients. It
is effective for web and JS apps and for native apps with claimed
URLs. Attacks on native apps using custom schemes or redirect URIs
on localhost cannot be prevented this way, except if the AS enforces
one-time use for PKCE verifier or "nonce" values.
3.6. Access Token Injection
In such an attack, the adversary attempts to inject a stolen access
token into a legitimate client on a device under his control. This
will typically happen if the attacker wants to utilize a leaked
access token to impersonate a user in a certain client.
To conduct the attack, the adversary starts an OAuth flow with the
client and modifies the authorization response by replacing the
access token issued by the authorization server or directly makes up
an authorization server response including the leaked access token.
Since the response includes the state value generated by the client
for this particular transaction, the client does not treat the
response as a CSRF and will use the access token injected by the
attacker.
3.6.1. Proposed Countermeasures
There is no way to detect such an injection attack on the OAuth
protocol level, since the token is issued without any binding to the
transaction or the particular user agent.
The recommendation is therefore to use the authorization code grant
type instead of relying on response types issuing acess tokens at the
authorization endpoint. Code injection can be detected using one of
the countermeasures discussed in Section 3.5.
3.7. Cross Site Request Forgery
An attacker might attempt to inject a request to the redirect URI of
the legitimate client on the victim's device, e.g., to cause the
client to access resources under the attacker's control.
3.7.1. Proposed Countermeasures
Standard CSRF defenses should be used to protect the redirection
endpoint, for example:
* *CSRF Tokens*: Use of CSRF tokens which are bound to the user
agent and passed in the "state" parameter to the authorization
server.
* *Origin Header*: The Origin header can be used to detect and
prevent CSRF attacks. Since this feature, at the time of writing,
is not consistently supported by all browsers, CSRF tokens should
be used in addition to Origin header checking.
For more details see [owasp_csrf].
3.8. Access Token Leakage at the Resource Server
Access tokens can leak from a resource server under certain
circumstances.
3.8.1. Access Token Phishing by Counterfeit Resource Server
An attacker may setup his own resource server and trick a client into
sending access tokens to it, which are valid for other resource
servers. If the client sends a valid access token to this
counterfeit resource server, the attacker in turn may use that token
to access other services on behalf of the resource owner.
This attack assumes the client is not bound to a certain resource
server (and the respective URL) at development time, but client
instances are configured with an resource server's URL at runtime.
This kind of late binding is typical in situations where the client
uses a standard API, e.g., for e-Mail, calendar, health, or banking
and is configured by an user or administrator for the standard-based
service, this particular user or company uses.
There are several potential mitigation strategies, which will be
discussed in the following sections.
3.8.1.1. Metadata
An authorization server could provide the client with additional
information about the location where it is safe to use its access
tokens.
In the simplest form, this would require the AS to publish a list of
its known resource servers, illustrated in the following example
using a metadata parameter "resource_servers":
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/json
{
"issuer":"https://server.somesite.example",
"authorization_endpoint":
"https://server.somesite.example/authorize",
“resource_servers”:[
“email.somesite.example”,
”storage.somesite.example”,
”video.somesite.example”]
...
}
The AS could also return the URL(s) an access token is good for in
the token response, illustrated by the example return parameter
"access_token_resource_server":
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json;charset=UTF-8
Cache-Control: no-store
Pragma: no-cache
{
"access_token":"2YotnFZFEjr1zCsicMWpAA",
“access_token_resource_server”:
"https://hostedresource.somesite.example/path1",
...
}
This mitigation strategy would rely on the client to enforce the
security policy and to only send access tokens to legitimate
destinations. Results of OAuth related security research (see for
example [#@!oauth_security_ubc] and [#!oauth_security_cmu]) indicate
a large portion of client implementations do not or fail to properly
implement security controls, like "state" checks. So relying on
clients to prevent access token phishing is likely to fail as well.
Moreover given the ratio of clients to authorization and resource
servers, it is considered the more viable approach to move as much as
possible security-related logic to those entities. Clearly, the
client has to contribute to the overall security. But there are
alternative countermeasures, as described in the next sections, which
provide a better balance between the involved parties.
3.8.1.2. Sender Constrained Access Tokens
As the name suggests, sender constrained access token scope the
applicability of an access token to a certain sender. This sender is
obliged to demonstrate knowledge of a certain secret as prerequisite
for the acceptance of that token at a resource server.
A typical flow looks like this:
1. The authorization server associates data with the access token
which binds this particular token to a certain client. The
binding can utilize the client identity, but in most cases the AS
utilizes key material (or data derived from the key material)
known to the client.
2. This key material must be distributed somehow. Either the key
material already exists before the AS creates the binding or the
AS creates ephemeral keys. The way pre-existing key material is
distributed varies among the different approaches. For example,
X.509 Certificates can be used in which case the distribution
happens explicitly during the enrollment process. Or the key
material is created and distributed at the TLS layer, in which
case it might automatically happens during the setup of a TLS
connection.
3. The RS must implement the actual proof of possession check. This
is typically done on the application level, it may utilize
capabilities of the transport layer (e.g., TLS). Note: replay
prevention is required as well!
There exists several proposals to demonstrate the proof of possession
in the scope of the OAuth working group:
* [I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding]: In this approach, an access tokens
is, via the so-called token binding id, bound to key material
representing a long term association between a client and a
certain TLS host. Negotiation of the key material and proof of
possession in the context of a TLS handshake is taken care of by
the TLS stack. The client needs to determine the token binding id
of the target resource server and pass this data to the access
token request. The authorization server than associates the
access token with this id. The resource server checks on every
invocation that the token binding id of the active TLS connection
and the token binding id of associated with the access token
match. Since all crypto-related functions are covered by the TLS
stack, this approach is very client developer friendly. As a
prerequisite, token binding as described in [I-D.ietf-tokbind-
https] (including federated token bindings) must be supported on
all ends (client, authorization server, resource server).
* [I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls]: The approach as specified in this document
allow use of mutual TLS for both client authentication and sender
constraint access tokens. For the purpose of sender constraint
access tokens, the client is identified towards the resource
server by the fingerprint of its public key. During processing of
an access token request, the authorization server obtains the
client's public key from the TLS stack and associates its
fingerprint with the respective access tokens. The resource
server in the same way obtains the public key from the TLS stack
and compares its fingerprint with the fingerprint associated with
the access token.
* [I-D.ietf-oauth-signed-http-request] specifies an approach to sign
HTTP requests. It utilizes [I-D.ietf-oauth-pop-key-distribution]
and represents the elements of the signature in a JSON object.
The signature is built using JWS. The mechanism has built-in
support for signing of HTTP method, query parameters and headers.
It also incorporates a timestamp as basis for replay prevention.
* [I-D.sakimura-oauth-jpop]: this draft describes different ways to
constrain access token usage, namely TLS or request signing.
Note: Since the authors of this draft contributed the TLS-related
proposal to [I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls], this document only considers
the request signing part. For request signing, the draft utilizes
[I-D.ietf-oauth-pop-key-distribution] and [RFC7800]. The
signature data is represented in a JWT and JWS is used for
signing. Replay prevention is provided by building the signature
over a server-provided nonce, client-provided nonce and a nonce
counter.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls] and [I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding] are built on
top of TLS and this way continue the successful OAuth 2.0 philosophy
to leverage TLS to secure OAuth wherever possible. Both mechanisms
allow prevention of access token leakage in a fairly client developer
friendly way.
There are some differences between both approaches: To start with, in
[I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding] all key material is automatically
managed by the TLS stack whereas [I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls] requires the
developer to create and maintain the key pairs and respective
certificates. Use of self-signed certificates, which is supported by
the draft, significantly reduce the complexity of this task.
Furthermore, [I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding] allows to use different
key pairs for different resource servers, which is a privacy benefit.
On the other hand, [I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls] only requires widely
deployed TLS features, which means it might be easier to adopt in the
short term.
Application level signing approaches, like [I-D.ietf-oauth-signed-
http-request] and [I-D.sakimura-oauth-jpop] have been debated for a
long time in the OAuth working group without a clear outcome.
As one advantage, application-level signing allows for end-to-end
protection including non-repudiation even if the TLS connection is
terminated between client and resource server. But deployment
experiences have revealed challenges regarding robustness (e.g.,
reproduction of the signature base string including correct URL) as
well as state management (e.g., replay prevention).
This document therefore recommends implementors to consider one of
TLS-based approaches wherever possible.
3.8.1.3. Audience Restricted Access Tokens
An audience restriction essentially restricts the resource server a
particular access token can be used at. The authorization server
associates the access token with a certain resource server and every
resource server is obliged to verify for every request, whether the
access token sent with that request was meant to be used at the
particular resource server. If not, the resource server must refuse
to serve the respective request. In the general case, audience
restrictions limit the impact of a token leakage. In the case of a
counterfeit resource server, it may (as described see below) also
prevent abuse of the phished access token at the legitimate resource
server.
The audience can basically be expressed using logical names or
physical addresses (like URLs). In order to prevent phishing, it is
necessary to use the actual URL the client will send requests to. In
the phishing case, this URL will point to the counterfeit resource
server. If the attacker tries to use the access token at the
legitimate resource server (which has a different URL), the resource
server will detect the mismatch (wrong audience) and refuse to serve
the request.
In deployments where the authorization server knows the URLs of all
resource servers, the authorization server may just refuse to issue
access tokens for unknown resource server URLs.
The client needs to tell the authorization server, at which URL it
will use the access token it is requesting. It could use the
mechanism proposed [I-D.ietf-oauth-resource-indicators] or encode the
information in the scope value.
Instead of the URL, it is also possible to utilize the fingerprint of
the resource server's X.509 certificate as audience value. This
variant would also allow to detect an attempt to spoof the legit
resource server's URL by using a valid TLS certificate obtained from
a different CA. It might also be considered a privacy benefit to
hide the resource server URL from the authorization server.
Audience restriction seems easy to use since it does not require any
crypto on the client side. But since every access token is bound to
a certain resource server, the client also needs to obtain different
RS-specific access tokens, if it wants to access several resource
services. [I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding] has the same property,
since different token binding ids must be associated with the access
token. [I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls] on the other hand allows a client to
use the access token at multiple resource servers.
It shall be noted that audience restrictions, or generally speaking
an indication by the client to the authorization server where it
wants to use the access token, has additional benefits beyond the
scope of token leakage prevention. It allows the authorization
server to create different access token whose format and content is
specifically minted for the respective server. This has huge
functional and privacy advantages in deployments using structured
access tokens.
3.8.2. Compromised Resource Server
An attacker may compromise a resource server in order to get access
to its resources and other resources of the respective deployment.
Such a compromise may range from partial access to the system, e.g.,
its logfiles, to full control of the respective server.
If the attacker was able to take over full control including shell
access it will be able to circumvent all controls in place and access
resources without access control. It will also get access to access
tokens, which are sent to the compromised system and which
potentially are valid for access to other resource servers as well.
Even if the attacker "only" is able to access logfiles or databases
of the server system, it may get access to valid access tokens.
Preventing server breaches by way of hardening and monitoring server
systems is considered a standard operational procedure and therefore
out of scope of this document. This section will focus on the impact
of such breaches on OAuth-related parts of the ecosystem, which is
the replay of captured access tokens on the compromised resource
server and other resource servers of the respective deployment.
The following measures should be taken into account by implementors
in order to cope with access token replay:
* The resource server must treat access tokens like any other
credentials. It is considered good practice to not log them and
not to store them in plain text.
* Sender constraint access tokens as described in Section 3.8.1.2
will prevent the attacker from replaying the access tokens on
other resource servers. Depending on the severity of the
penetration, it will also prevent replay on the compromised
system.
* Audience restriction as described in Section 3.8.1.3 may be used
to prevent replay of captured access tokens on other resource
servers.
3.9. Open Redirection
The following attacks can occur when an AS or client has an open
redirector, i.e., a URL which causes an HTTP redirect to an attacker-
controlled web site.
3.9.1. Authorization Server as Open Redirector
Attackers could try to utilize a user's trust in the authorization
server (and its URL in particular) for performing phishing attacks.
[RFC6749], Section 4.1.2.1, already prevents open redirects by
stating the AS MUST NOT automatically redirect the user agent in case
of an invalid combination of client_id and redirect_uri.
However, as described in [I-D.ietf-oauth-closing-redirectors], an
attacker could also utilize a correctly registered redirect URI to
perform phishing attacks. It could for example register a client via
dynamic client [RFC7591] registration and intentionally send an
erroneous authorization request, e.g., by using an invalid scope
value, to cause the AS to automatically redirect the user agent to
its phishing site.
The AS MUST take precautions to prevent this threat. Based on its
risk assessment the AS needs to decide whether it can trust the
redirect URI or not and SHOULD only automatically redirect the user
agent, if it trusts the redirect URI. If not, it MAY inform the user
that it is about to redirect her to the another site and rely on the
user to decide or MAY just inform the user about the error.
3.9.2. Clients as Open Redirector
Client MUST NOT expose URLs which could be utilized as open
redirector. Attackers may use an open redirector to produce URLs
which appear to point to the client, which might trick users to trust
the URL and follow it in her browser. Another abuse case is to
produce URLs pointing to the client and utilize them to impersonate a
client with an authorization server.
In order to prevent open redirection, clients should only expose such
a function, if the target URLs are whitelisted or if the origin of a
request can be authenticated.
3.10. 307 Redirect
At the authorization endpoint, a typical protocol flow is that the AS
prompts the user to enter her credentials in a form that is then
submitted (using the HTTP POST method) back to the authorization
server. The AS checks the credentials and, if successful, redirects
the user agent to the client's redirection endpoint.
In [RFC6749], the HTTP status code 302 is used for this purpose, but
"any other method available via the user-agent to accomplish this
redirection is allowed". However, when the status code 307 is used
for redirection, the user agent will send the form data (user
credentials) via HTTP POST to the client since this status code does
not require the user agent to rewrite the POST request to a GET
request (and thereby dropping the form data in the POST request
body). If the relying party is malicious, it can use the credentials
to impersonate the user at the AS.
In the HTTP standard [RFC6749], only the status code 303
unambigiously enforces rewriting the HTTP POST request to an HTTP GET
request. For all other status codes, including the popular 302, user
agents can opt not to rewrite POST to GET requests and therefore to
reveal the user credentials to the client. (In practice, however,
most user agents will only show this behaviour for 307 redirects.)
AS which redirect a request that potentially contains user
credentials therefore MUST not use the HTTP 307 status code for
redirection. If an HTTP redirection (and not, for example,
JavaScript) is used for such a request, AS SHOULD use HTTP status
code 303 "See Other".
3.11. TLS Terminating Reverse Proxies
A common deployment architecture for HTTP applications is to have the
application server sitting behind a reverse proxy, which terminates
the TLS connection and dispatches the incoming requests to the
respective application server nodes.
This section highlights some attack angles of this deployment
architecture, which are relevant to OAuth, and give recommendations
for security controls.
In some situations, the reverse proxy needs to pass security-related
data to the upstream application servers for further processing.
Examples include the IP address of the request originator, token
binding ids and authenticated TLS client certificates.
If the reverse proxy would pass through any header sent from the
outside, an attacker could try to directly send the faked header
values through the proxy to the application server in order to
circumvent security controls that way. For example, it is standard
practice of reverse proxies to accept "forwarded_for" headers and
just add the origin of the inbound request (making it a list).
Depending on the logic performed in the application server, the
attacker could simply add a whitelisted IP address to the header and
render a IP whitelist useless. A reverse proxy must therefore
sanitize any inbound requests to ensure the authenticity and
integrity of all header values relevant for the security of the
application servers.
If an attacker would be able to get access to the internal network
between proxy and application server, it could also try to circumvent
security controls in place. It is therefore important to ensure the
authenticity of the communicating entities. Furthermore, the
communication link between reverse proxy and application server must
therefore be protected against tapping and injection (including
replay prevention).
3.12. Refresh Token Protection
Refresh tokens are a convenient and UX-friendly way to obtain new
access tokens after the expiration of older access tokens. Refresh
tokens also add to the security of OAuth since they allow the
authorization server to issue access tokens with a short lifetime and
reduced scope thus reducing the potential impact of access token
leakage.
Refresh tokens themself are an attractive target for attackers since
they represent the overall grant a resource owner delegated to a
certain client. If an attacker is able to exfiltrate and
successfully replay a refresh token, it will be able to mint access
tokens and use them to access resource servers on behalf of the
resource server.
[RFC6749] already provides robust base protection by requiring
* confidentiality of the refresh tokens in transit and storage,
* the transmission of refresh tokens over TLS-protected connections
between authorization server and client,
* the authorization server to maintain and check the binding of a
refresh token to a certain client_id,
* authentication of this client_id during token refresh, if
possible, and
* that refresh tokens cannot be generated, modified, or guessed.
[RFC6749] also lays the foundation for further (implementation
specific) security measures, such as refresh token expiration and
revocation as well as refresh token rotation by defining respective
error codes and response behavior.
This draft gives recommendations beyond the scope of [RFC6749] and
clarifications.
Authorization servers MUST determine based on their risk assessment
whether to issue refresh tokens to a certain client. If the
authorization server decides not to issue refresh tokens, the client
may refresh access tokens by utilizing other grant types, such as the
authorization code grant type. In such a case, the authorization
server may utilize cookies and persistents grants to optimize the
user experience.
If refresh tokens are issued, those refresh tokens MUST be bound to
the scope and resource servers as consented by the resource owner.
This is to prevent privilege escalation by the legit client and
reduce the impact of refresh tokens leakage.
Authorization server MUST utilize one of the methods listed below to
detect refresh token replay for public clients:
* Sender constrained refresh tokens: the authorization server
cryptographically binds the refresh token to a certain client
instance by utilizing [I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding] or [I-D.ietf-
oauth-mtls].
* Refresh token rotation: the authorization issues a new refresh
token with every access token refresh response. The previous
refresh token is invalidated but information about the
relationship is retained by the authorization server. If a
refresh token is compromised and subsequently used by both the
attacker and the legitimate client, one of them will present an
invalidated refresh token, which will inform the authorization
server of the breach. The authorization server cannot determine
which party submitted the invalid refresh token, but it can revoke
the active refresh token. This stops the attack at the cost of
forcing the legit client to obtain a fresh authorization grant.
Implementation note: refresh tokens belonging to the same grant
may share a common id. If any of those refresh tokens is used at
the authorization server, the authorization server uses this
common id to look up the currently active refresh token and can
revoke it.
Authorization servers may revoke refresh tokens automatically in case
of a security event, such as:
* password change
* logout at the authorization server
Refresh tokens SHOULD expire if the client has been inactive for some
time,i.e. the refresh token has not been used to obtain fresh access
tokens for some time. The expiration time is at the discretion of
the authorization server. It might be a global value or determined
based on the client policy or the grant associated with the refresh
token (and its sensitivity).
4. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jim Manico, Phil Hunt, Nat Sakimura, Christian
Mainka, Doug McDorman, Johan Peeters, Joseph Heenan, Brock Allen,
Vittorio Bertocci, David Waite, Nov Matake, Tomek Stojecki, Dominick
Baier, Neil Madden, William Dennis, Dick Hardt, Petteri Stenius,
Annabelle Richard Backman, Aaron Parecki, George Fletscher, and Brian
Campbell for their valuable feedback.
5. IANA Considerations
This draft includes no request to IANA.
6. Security Considerations
All relevant security considerations have been given in the
functional specification.
7. Normative References
[arXiv.1508.04324v2]
Schwenk, J., "On the security of modern Single Sign-On
Protocols: Second-Order Vulnerabilities in OpenID
Connect", 7 January 2016.
[arXiv.1601.01229]
Schmitz, G., "A Comprehensive Formal Security Analysis of
OAuth 2.0", 6 January 2016.
[arXiv.1704.08539]
Schmitz, G., "The Web SSO Standard OpenID Connect: In-
Depth Formal Security Analysis and Security Guidelines",
27 April 2017.
[bug.chromium]
"Referer header includes URL fragment when opening link
using New Tab", December 2018.
[fb_fragments]
"Facebook Developer Blog", December 2018.
[I-D.bradley-oauth-jwt-encoded-state]
Bradley, J., Lodderstedt, T., and H. Zandbelt, "Encoding
claims in the OAuth 2 state parameter using a JWT", draft-
bradley-oauth-jwt-encoded-state-09 (work in progress), 4
November 2018,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-closing-redirectors]
Bradley, J., Sanso, A., and H. Tschofenig, "OAuth 2.0
Security: Closing Open Redirectors in OAuth", draft-ietf-
oauth-closing-redirectors-00 (work in progress), 4
February 2016,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-jwsreq]
Sakimura, N. and J. Bradley, "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization
Framework: JWT Secured Authorization Request (JAR)",
draft-ietf-oauth-jwsreq-17 (work in progress), 21 October
2018,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-mix-up-mitigation]
Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "OAuth 2.0 Mix-Up
Mitigation", draft-ietf-oauth-mix-up-mitigation-01 (work
in progress), 7 July 2016,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-mtls]
Campbell, B., Bradley, J., Sakimura, N., and T.
Lodderstedt, "OAuth 2.0 Mutual TLS Client Authentication
and Certificate Bound Access Tokens", draft-ietf-oauth-
mtls-12 (work in progress), 18 October 2018,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-pop-key-distribution]
Bradley, J., Hunt, P., Jones, M., Tschofenig, H., and M.
Mihaly, "OAuth 2.0 Proof-of-Possession: Authorization
Server to Client Key Distribution", draft-ietf-oauth-pop-
key-distribution-04 (work in progress), 23 October 2018,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-resource-indicators]
Campbell, B., Bradley, J., and H. Tschofenig, "Resource
Indicators for OAuth 2.0", draft-ietf-oauth-resource-
indicators-01 (work in progress), 19 October 2018,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-signed-http-request]
Richer, J., Bradley, J., and H. Tschofenig, "A Method for
Signing HTTP Requests for OAuth", draft-ietf-oauth-signed-
http-request-03 (work in progress), 8 August 2016,
.
[I-D.ietf-oauth-token-binding]
Jones, M., Campbell, B., Bradley, J., and W. Denniss,
"OAuth 2.0 Token Binding", draft-ietf-oauth-token-
binding-08 (work in progress), 19 October 2018,
.
[I-D.ietf-tokbind-https]
Popov, A., Nystrom, M., Balfanz, D., Langley, A., Harper,
N., and J. Hodges, "Token Binding over HTTP", draft-ietf-
tokbind-https-18 (work in progress), 26 June 2018,
.
[I-D.sakimura-oauth-jpop]
Sakimura, N., Li, K., and J. Bradley, "The OAuth 2.0
Authorization Framework: JWT Pop Token Usage", draft-
sakimura-oauth-jpop-04 (work in progress), 27 March 2017,
.
[oauth-v2-form-post-response-mode]
"OAuth 2.0 Form Post Response Mode", 27 April 2015.
[oauth_security_jcs_14]
Maffeis, S., "Discovering concrete attacks on website
authorization by formal analysis", 23 April 2014.
[OpenID] "OpenID Connect Core 1.0 incorporating errata set 1", 8
November 2014.
[owasp] "Open Web Application Security Project Home Page",
December 2018.
[owasp_csrf]
"Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Prevention Cheat
Sheet", December 2018.
[RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2616, June 1999,
.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
.
[RFC6749] Hardt, D., Ed., "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework",
RFC 6749, DOI 10.17487/RFC6749, October 2012,
.
[RFC6750] Jones, M. and D. Hardt, "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization
Framework: Bearer Token Usage", RFC 6750,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6750, October 2012,
.
[RFC6819] Lodderstedt, T., Ed., McGloin, M., and P. Hunt, "OAuth 2.0
Threat Model and Security Considerations", RFC 6819,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6819, January 2013,
.
[RFC7231] Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content", RFC 7231,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7231, June 2014,
.
[RFC7591] Richer, J., Ed., Jones, M., Bradley, J., Machulak, M., and
P. Hunt, "OAuth 2.0 Dynamic Client Registration Protocol",
RFC 7591, DOI 10.17487/RFC7591, July 2015,
.
[RFC7636] Sakimura, N., Ed., Bradley, J., and N. Agarwal, "Proof Key
for Code Exchange by OAuth Public Clients", RFC 7636,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7636, September 2015,
.
[RFC7800] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and H. Tschofenig, "Proof-of-
Possession Key Semantics for JSON Web Tokens (JWTs)",
RFC 7800, DOI 10.17487/RFC7800, April 2016,
.
[RFC8414] Jones, M., Sakimura, N., and J. Bradley, "OAuth 2.0
Authorization Server Metadata", RFC 8414,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8414, June 2018,
.
[webappsec-referrer-policy]
"Referrer Policy", 20 April 2017.
Appendix A. Document History
[[ To be removed from the final specification ]]
-11
* Adapted section 2.1.2 to outcome of consensus call
* more text on refresh token inactivity and implementation note on
refres token replay detection via refresh token rotation
-10
* incorporated feedback by Joseph Heenan
* changed occurrences of SHALL to MUST
* added text on lack of token/cert binding support tokens issued in
the authorization response as justification to not recommend
issuing tokens there at all
* added requirement to authenticate clients during code exchange
(PKCE or client credential) to 2.1.1.
* added section on refresh tokens
* editorial enhancements to 2.1.2 based on feedback
-09
* changed text to recommend not to use implicit but code
* added section on access token injection
* reworked sections 3.1 through 3.3 to be more specific on implicit
grant issues
-08
* added recommendations re implicit and token injection
* uppercased key words in Section 2 according to RFC 2119
-07
* incorporated findings of Doug McDorman
* added section on HTTP status codes for redirects
* added new section on access token privilege restriction based on
comments from Johan Peeters
-06
* reworked section 3.8.1
* incorporated Phil Hunt's feedback
* reworked section on mix-up
* extended section on code leakage via referrer header to also cover
state leakage
* added Daniel Fett as author
* replaced text intended to inform WG discussion by recommendations
to implementors
* modified example URLs to conform to RFC 2606
-05
* Completed sections on code leakage via referrer header, attacks in
browser, mix-up, and CSRF
* Reworked Code Injection Section
* Added reference to OpenID Connect spec
* removed refresh token leakage as respective considerations have
been given in section 10.4 of RFC 6749
* first version on open redirection
* incorporated Christian Mainka's review feedback
-04
* Restructured document for better readability
* Added best practices on Token Leakage prevention
-03
* Added section on Access Token Leakage at Resource Server
* incorporated Brian Campbell's findings
-02
* Folded Mix up and Access Token leakage through a bad AS into new
section for dynamic OAuth threats
* reworked dynamic OAuth section
-01
* Added references to mitigation methods for token leakage
* Added reference to Token Binding for Authorization Code
* incorporated feedback of Phil Hunt
* fixed numbering issue in attack descriptions in section 2
-00 (WG document)
* turned the ID into a WG document and a BCP
* Added federated app login as topic in Other Topics
Authors' Addresses
Torsten Lodderstedt
yes.com
Email: torsten@lodderstedt.net
John Bradley
Yubico
Email: ve7jtb@ve7jtb.com
Andrey Labunets
Facebook
Email: isciurus@fb.com
Daniel Fett
yes.com
Email: mail@danielfett.de