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Database

Insecure session expiration time

Need

Enforce secure session expiration time

Context

• Usage of Go 1.16 for building efficient and scalable applications

• Usage of Gin for building web applications in Go

• Usage of sessions package from github.com/gin-contrib for managing user sessions in a Gin web framework application

• Usage of cookie-based sessions with the GitHub.com/gin-contrib/sessions/cookie package

Description

1. Non compliant code

package main

import (
    "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
    "github.com/gin-contrib/sessions"
    "github.com/gin-contrib/sessions/cookie"
)
func main() {...

In the above code, we are using Gin framework for our Go backend application. We are also using `gin-contrib/sessions` for session management. The session store is created with `cookie.NewStore([]byte("secret"))` and is used in the router with `router.Use(sessions.Sessions("mysession", store))`. In the `/home` route, we are getting the session and the user from the session. If the user is not in the session, we return a 401 Unauthorized error. If the user is in the session, we return a welcome message. The vulnerability in this code is that the user sessions do not expire after 5 minutes of inactivity. This means that if a user logs in and then leaves their computer without logging out, anyone can use their session to access the `/home` route. This is a security risk because it allows unauthorized access to user data.

2. Steps

• Set a proper session expiration time for user sessions.

• Implement a mechanism to track user activity and update the session expiration time accordingly.

• Use a secure session store to store session data.

• Encrypt the session data to prevent tampering.

• Implement proper authentication and authorization mechanisms to ensure only authenticated users can access sensitive routes.

• Regularly review and update the application's security measures to address any new vulnerabilities.

3. Secure code example

package main

import (
    "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
    "github.com/gin-contrib/sessions"
    "github.com/gin-contrib/sessions/cookie"
    "time"
...

The updated code now includes a session expiration time of 5 minutes. This is achieved by setting the `MaxAge` option of the session store to 5 minutes. The `MaxAge` option is set in seconds, so we convert 5 minutes to seconds using `time.Minute / time.Second`. This ensures that user sessions will automatically expire after 5 minutes of inactivity, enhancing the security of the application by reducing the window of opportunity for unauthorized access. Please note that this is a basic implementation and might need to be adjusted based on your specific requirements. For example, you might want to implement a mechanism to extend the session if the user is actively interacting with the application. Also, remember to replace `"secret"` with a strong, unique key to ensure the security of your session data.

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