Almost every incident worth writing about starts with something that was working exactly as designed. The design was just describing a different world than the one the system ended up in.
This piece walks through how we think about it at Paycux, what we have changed our minds about, and where the sharp edges are.
What is a CSRF attack?
Consider what is a csrf attack?. Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
Detection beats prevention when prevention is uncertain. If you cannot stop a class of abuse outright, make sure it produces a signal loud enough that someone sees it the same day.
How does CSRF work?
How does CSRF work? is where this gets concrete. Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
Rotate on a schedule, not on an incident. A rotation path that has been exercised is a routine change; one that has never been used is an outage waiting for the worst possible moment.
- Scope credentials to the smallest useful blast radius
- Alert on the abuse you cannot prevent
- Exercise the rotation path before you need it
- Log the decision, not just the outcome
Examples of common CSRF vulnerabilities
Examples of common CSRF vulnerabilities is where this gets concrete. Detection beats prevention when prevention is uncertain. If you cannot stop a class of abuse outright, make sure it produces a signal loud enough that someone sees it the same day.
Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
How to prevent CSRF attacks
Consider how to prevent csrf attacks. Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
Rotate on a schedule, not on an incident.
Use anti-CSRF tokens
Use anti-CSRF tokens deserves its own treatment. Rotate on a schedule, not on an incident. A rotation path that has been exercised is a routine change; one that has never been used is an outage waiting for the worst possible moment.
Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
Implement SameSite cookies
That brings us to implement samesite cookies. Detection beats prevention when prevention is uncertain. If you cannot stop a class of abuse outright, make sure it produces a signal loud enough that someone sees it the same day.
Rotate on a schedule, not on an incident. A rotation path that has been exercised is a routine change; one that has never been used is an outage waiting for the worst possible moment.
Require user re-authentication (CAPTCHA, passwords)
Require user re-authentication (CAPTCHA, passwords) is where this gets concrete. Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
Blast radius is the metric that actually matters. A credential that can read one organization's data is an incident; the same credential scoped to every organization is a company-ending event, and the difference is a design decision made months earlier.
Where this leaves us
None of this is exotic. It is the ordinary discipline of deciding what you own, writing down what you assume, and making the failures loud enough to notice.
If you are working through the same problem and want to compare notes, the docs cover the mechanics and the console shows the behaviour on your own data.
Everything here, already built
Sign-in, enterprise SSO, directory provisioning, roles and an audit trail behind one API.