Simple, secure API authentication system

Question

I have a simple REST JSON API for other websites/apps to access some of my website\'s database (through a PHP gateway). Basically the service works like this: call example.com/f

Answer 1

You should use OAuth.

There are actually two OAuth specifications, the 3-legged version and the 2-legged version. The 3-legged version is the one that gets most of the attention, and it's not the one you want to use.

The good news is that the 2-legged version does exactly what you want, it allows an application to grant access to another via either a shared secret key (very similar to Amazon's Web Service model, you will use the HMAC-SHA1 signing method) or via a public/private key system (use signing method: RSA-SHA1). The bad news, is that it's not nearly as well supported yet as the 3-legged version yet, so you may have to do a bit more work than you otherwise might have to right now.

Basically, 2-legged OAuth just specifies a way to "sign" (compute a hash over) several fields which include the current date, a random number called "nonce," and the parameters of your request. This makes it very hard to impersonate requests to your web service.

OAuth is slowly but surely becoming an accepted standard for this kind of thing -- you'll be best off in the long run if you embrace it because people can then leverage the various libraries available for doing that.

It's more elaborate than you would initially want to get into - but the good news is that a lot of people have spent a lot of time on it so you know you haven't forgotten anything. A great example is that very recently Twitter found a gap in the OAuth security which the community is currently working on closing. If you'd invented your own system, you're having to figure out all this stuff on your own.

Good luck!

Chris

Answer 2

All of production of IP's security seems produces a giant bug to users before getting connected. Symbian 60s has the fullest capability to left an untraced, reliable and secure signal in the midst of multiple users(applying Opera Handler UI 6.5, Opera Mini v8 and 10) along with the coded UI's, +completely filled network set-up. Why restrict for other features when discoverable method of making faster link method is finally obtained. Keeping a more identified accounts, proper monitoring of that 'true account'-if they are on the track-compliance of paying bills and knowing if the users has an unexpired maintaining balance will create a more faster link of internet signal to popular/signatured mobile industry. Why making hard security features before getting them to the site, a visit to their accounts monthly may erase all of connectivity issues? All of the user of mobile should have no capability to 'get connected' if they have unpaid bills. Why not provide an 'ALL in One' -Registration/Application account, a programmed fixed with OS, (perhaps an e-mail account) instead with a 'monitoring capability' if they are paying or not (password issues concern-should be given to other department). And if 'not' turn-off their account exactly and their other link features. Each of them has their own interests to where to get hooked daily, if you'd locked/turn them off due to unpaid bills that may initiate them to re-subscribe and discipline them more to become a more responsible users and that may even expire an account if not maintained. Monthly monitoring or accessing of an identified 'true account' with collaboration to the network provider produces higher privacy instead of always asking for users 'name' and 'password', 'location', 'permissions' to view their data services. IP's marked already their first identity or 'finding the location of the users' so, it's seems unnessary to place it on browsers pre-searches, why not use 'Obtaining data' or 'Processing data.'

Answer 3

OAuth is not the solution here.
OAuth is when you have endusers and want 3rd party apps not to handle end user passwords. When to use OAuth: http://blog.apigee.com/detail/when_to_use_oauth/

Go for simple api-key.
And take additional measures if there is a need for a more secure solution.

Here is some more info, http://blog.apigee.com/detail/do_you_need_api_keys_api_identity_vs._authorization/

Answer 4

If someone's client side code is compromised, they should get a new key. There's not much you can do if their code is exposed.

You can however, be more strict by requiring IP addresses of authorized servers to be registered in your system for the given key. This adds an extra step and may be overkill.

I'm not sure what you mean by using a "simple API key" but you should be using some kind of authentication that has private keys(known only to client and server), and then perform some kind of checksum algorithm on the data to ensure that the client is indeed who you think it is, and that the data has not been modified in transit. Amazon AWS is a great example of how to do this.

I think it may be a little strict to guarantee that code has not been compromised on your clients' side. I think it is reasonable to place responsibility on your clients for the security of their own data. Of course this assumes that an attacker can only mess up that client's account.

Perhaps you could keep a log of what ip requests are coming from for a particular account, and if a new ip comes along, flag the account, send an email to the client, and ask them to authorize that ip. I don't know maybe something like that could work.

Answer 5

Basically you have two options, either restrict access by IP or then have an API key, both options have their positive and negative sides.

Restriction by IP
This can be a handy way to restrict the access to you service. You can define exactly which 3rd party services will be allowed to access your service without enforcing them to implement any special authentication features. The problem with this method is however, that if the 3rd party service is written for example entirely in JavaScript, then the IP of the incoming request won't be the 3rd party service's server IP, but the user's IP, as the request is made by the user's browser and not the server. Using IP restriction will hence make it impossible to write client-driven applications and forces all the requests go through the server with proper access rights. Remember that IP addresses can also be spoofed.

API key
The advantage with API keys is that you do not have to maintain a list of known IPs, you do have to maintain a list of API keys, but it's easier to automatize their maintenance. Basically how this works is that you have two keys, for example a user id and a secret password. Each method request to your service should provide an authentication hash consisting of the request parameters, the user id and a hash of these values (where the secrect password is used as the hash salt). This way you can both authenticate and restrict access. The problem with this is, that once again, if the 3rd party service is written as client-driven (for example JavaScript or ActionScript), then anyone can parse out the user id and secret salt values from the code.

Basically, if you want to be sure that only the few services you've specifically defined will be allowed to access your service, then you only option is to use IP restriction and hence force them to route all requests via their servers. If you use an API key, you have no way to enforce this.