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Session ID in URL (Via URL Rewrite)

Session ID in URL Rewrite

What is it?​

Many users disable cookies as a security precaution in their browsers. In such cases, APIs that use cookies as the authentication mechanism, resort to embedding the session ID as a query parameter in the URL.

This is done by rewriting the original API URL with a new URL that has the session ID as a query parameter.

This is insecure as URLs can be cached, logged, and are generally visible in the browser. So any URL that has a secret (session ID) is likely to leak the secret, and lead to account takeover, etc.

References​

Test case FAQs​

When is this test case applicable?​

This is applicable for all API endpoints when the Baseline security category is enabled in test plans.

How does it work?​

Responses sent by the API server are analyzed for redirects to rewritten URLs that have session IDs embedded as query parameters.

What is the solution?​

Use bearer token based authentication for APIs. Alternatively use cookies instead of session IDs in the URL.

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