Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors

Front 1

What is Cross-site scripting (XSS)?

Back 1

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is one of the most prevalent, obstinate, and dangerous vulnerabilities in web applications. It's pretty much inevitable when you combine the stateless nature of HTTP, the mixture of data and script in HTML, lots of data passing between web sites, diverse encoding schemes, and feature-rich web browsers.

Front 2

What would happen if you use SQL queries in security controls?

Back 2

attackers could alter the logic of those queries to bypass security. They could modify the queries to steal, corrupt, or otherwise change your underlying data. They'll even steal data one byte at a time if they have to, and they have the patience and know-how to do so.

Front 3

What is the is the simplest error to make in a time when there are much more interesting mistakes to avoid?

Back 3

copying an untrusted input without checking the size of that input

Front 4

What Tester will you use to identify potential issues?

Back 4

Use OWASP CSRFTester to identify potential issues.

Front 5

What will you use to enforce the roles at their appropriate boundaries?

Back 5

Use role-based access control (RBAC)

Front 6

Give an example of a message authentication code (MAC) algorithm.

Back 6

Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC)

Front 7

What mechanism can remove characters such as '.' and ';' which may be required for some exploits?

Back 7

A sanitizing mechanism

Front 8

What is unrestricted file upload?

Back 8

The "unrestricted file upload" term is used in vulnerability databases and elsewhere, but it is insufficiently precise. The phrase could be interpreted as the lack of restrictions on the size or number of uploaded files, which is a resource consumption issue.

Front 9

What are the two subtypes of OS command injection?

Back 9

1) The application intends to execute a single, fixed program that is under its own control.1) The application intends to execute a single, fixed program that is under its own control.

2) The application accepts an input that it uses to fully select which program to run, as well as which commands to use.

Front 10

What are the two separate needs and contexts for encryption?

Back 10

1. One-way.This can be achieved using public key cryptography, or other techniques in which the encrypting party does not need to have access to a private key.

2. Two-way. This requires storage of the private key in a format that is recoverable only by the user in a way that cannot be recovered by others.

Front 11

What are the three solutions possible For front-end to back-end connections?

Back 11

The first suggestion involves the use of generated passwords or keys that are changed automatically and must be entered at given time intervals by a system administrator.

Next, the passwords or keys should be limited at the back end to only performing actions valid for the front end, as opposed to having full access.

Finally, the messages sent should be tagged and checksummed with time sensitive values so as to prevent replay-style attacks.

Front 12

What does Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) do?

Back 12

It forces the attacker to guess an unknown value that changes every program execution.

Front 13

What is Local file inclusion?

Back 13

This term is frequently used in cases in which remote download is disabled, or when the first part of the filename is not under the attacker's control, which forces use of relative path traversal (CWE-23) attack techniques to access files that may contain previously-injected PHP code, such as web access logs.

Front 14

What is the most common condition situation leading to unchecked array indexing?

Back 14

Use of loop index variables as buffer indexes.

Front 15

What does Murphy's Law says?

Back 15

Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong

Front 16

What is Confidentiality?

Back 16

Often this will either reveal sensitive information which may be used for a later attack or private information stored in the server.

Front 17

What is "Integer overflow"?

Back 17

"Integer overflow" is sometimes used to cover several types of errors, including signedness errors, or buffer overflows that involve manipulation of integer data types instead of characters.

Front 18

What is the reason when the programmer does not properly calculate the size of a buffer?

Back 18

the buffer may be too small to contain the data that the programmer plans to write - even if the input was properly validated.

Front 19

How will you ensure that all channels are appropriately protected?

Back 19

Identify all potential communication channels, or other means of interaction with the software

Front 20

What technique is useful in cases when source code is unavailable, if the software was not developed by you, or if you want to verify that the build phase did not introduce any new weaknesses.

Back 20

Use monitoring tools that examine the software's process as it interacts with the operating system and the network.

Front 21

How will you maintain more fine-grained control over your resources?

Back 21

Divide your application into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully defining distinct user groups, privileges, and/or roles. Map these against data, functionality, and the related resources. Then set the permissions accordingly.

Front 22

How will you limit the potential for a DoS attack?

Back 22

Consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.

Front 23

What are the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter into a software?

Back 23

Parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, databases, and any external systems that provide data to the application.

Front 24

What are Cryptographic algorithms?

Back 24

Cryptographic algorithms are the methods by which data is scrambled. T

Front 25

What can Black box methods do?

Back 25

Black box methods may be able to identify evidence of race conditions via methods such as multiple simultaneous connections, which may cause the software to become instable or crash.