Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Web Application Security – But Were Afraid to Ask

Here is an interesting general document about web application security, a list with frequently asked questions: http://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_AppSec_FAQ

It gives good advice on how to design the login process. It describes a best practice for the "Lost Password" feature, which is especially important these days where there are an increasing number of attacks based on this feature. One thing I have to add in this context: You should not return a meaningful error message if the user name for the lost password existed. An attacker can use this to find valid user names, and did you know that a password cracker can check 30,000 passwords a minute over the Internet?

BTW, I'm glad that LoginSugar, the popular login system generator, has seen a security update after I published several security issues here. If you use it, please download the new version which is now also compatible with Rails 1.2.