Dear Monks,
As I learn more about the world of Perl and progamming I read many of your articles and look for an asnwer that currently does not seem to be answered or discussed previously.

I have been doing much reading about password and user validation. I am currenly working on writing an object for a vliunteer effort I am working on to allow users to enter the site I work with.
This is the current list of access problems that have come to my attention and I would like to know if I am missing any.
  • Protecting usernames, not making them available publically, not using obvious ones for adminstration scripts ( i.e. god )
  • Password should be upper and lowercase, numbers as well as letters.
  • reasonable minimum length ( 5-7 char )
  • maximum length something long like 30 chars
  • dictionary !match like UNIX systems have ( not sure where to get a good file of words )
  • username != password
  • username != stored first or last name or other data
  • Hash passwords one way using md5 so if database gets compromised they cannot get in later an wreak havoc
  • Check IP, if same IP logs in or attempts to log in more than ( 3? ) times in (3?) minutes block attempts for certain period of time. This should prevent some hammering and people from trying to open 400 accounts with LWP or some other software ( like Ms Office/VB and IE ) and cause my ISP to hate me.
  • check username logins so that someone is not rotating ip's and trying to open one account.
  • use %ENV{HTTP_REFFERER} or .htaccess to block simple access from sites !mySite ( keep people from putting a wrapper around my site easily )
  • log all logins to look for trends and problems
  • lost password script generates random Alphanumeric script. It was in a seekers of perl wisdom last week. And asks for more than just the answer to the hint ( as I found out last year people put in really easy hints ).

    What else should i look for to prevent someone from getting in that should not be. My backend is secure or so my ISP tells me ( and they are pretty good at this stuff ). And I read ovid's tutorial on tainting and checking all vars and NOT LETTING ANY USER DATA NEAR THE SHELL.

    Angel

    In reply to User Validation factors by Angel

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