I saw some discussion recently about using JSON for secured data, and I'm not sure that everyone understands the risks. I believe that JSON is unsafe for anything but public data unless you are using unpredictable URLs. . There are 2 problems. CSRF (Cross Site Request Fogery) allows attackers to bypass cookie based authentication. I blogged about it a while ago. Wikipedia talks about it. CSRF allows you to invoke cookie protected actions on a remote server. It allows Mr. Evil to trick Mrs. Innocent into transferring money from her bank account into his. Far less known perhaps, is the JSON/Array hack that allows a user to steal JSON data on Mozilla and any other platform with a modern JavaScript interpreter. . JSON can introduce vulnerabilities such as XSS, potentially compromising session security and exposing critical information.. CSRF Vulnerabilities, JSON Security Risks, Data Authentication Threats. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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