Secure identity and access management has become a key challenge for organisations. Among the solutions available, Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) has become an essential standard for single sign-on (SSO).
This XML-based protocol enables users to authenticate once and access multiple applications without having to log in again, simplifying the user experience. However, if poorly implemented, critical vulnerabilities can be exploited.
In an office environment, user workstations generally use Windows operating systems and therefore authenticate using protocols developed by Microsoft.
And to centralise authentication management, Microsoft provides its Active Directory (AD), which is based on the Kerberos protocol. However, some machines do not implement this protocol and some networks simply do not have an Active Directory. In these cases, there is the NTLM protocol, which can work between two machines without AD or via the Netlogon process.
You’ve probably heard about the arrival of LLMs in a big way, at least with ChatGPT.
LLM (Large Language Model) refers to language processing models. These models are trained to perform all types of linguistic tasks: translation, text generation, question answering, etc.
Developed in 2012 and made open source in 2015 by Facebook, GraphQL (Graph Query Language) has been under the umbrella of the GraphQL Foundation since 2019.
GraphQL is a query language, i.e. a language used to access data in a database or any other information system, in the same way as SQL (Structured Query Language).
Authentication and, by extension, user identification are central to web applications.
These two mechanisms are used to manage rights and access (for example, between an administrator and a standard user), to partition data between different accounts, to identify different users, etc.
Often, when we hear about Java serialization, we find resources or challenges that only talk about generating and executing ysoserial payloads.
In some situations, this can work. However, as soon as a customer is aware of this possibility, rather than using a more secure format, they generally prefer to use a library such as notsoserial which prevents the deserialization of unauthorized classes.
In the space of 5 years, the number of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks has almost doubled. The result is the paralysis of tens of millions of web platforms and the loss of thousands or even millions of euros by victim organisations.
Companies such as Amazon and GitHub have already been affected by this type of attack. One of the best-known attacks is MIRAI, which used a botnet of nearly 100,000 hijacked machines to make Dyn’s services unavailable in 2016.
During a penetration test, we generally consider 3 test conditions: black, grey or white box.
These test conditions correspond to the levels of information provided to the pentesters in order to carry out a pentest on a specific target. While a white box pentest will consist of providing as much information as possible, during a black box penetration test, the pentesters will have no data on the test target.
When pentesting a web application, an API or an internal network, there are generally 3 approaches: black box, grey box and white box testing.
These approaches or test conditions correspond to different levels of information provided to the pentesters to identify potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses that could compromise the integrity of a target system.
