Question

I am writing a password-reset page for my website. Here’s my idea:

a. User click the “forgot password” link on the login page

b. Redirect to my password-reset page

c. User enter his email address

d. A email message sent to the email address with the link to reset his/her password. The link has security code like ?code=”xxxx” in it.

e. User open the link and enter new password, and then click the submit button.

f. My page change user’s password.

My question is for step f. In step e, when user opened the link, I could verify his security code and then show the ‘new password’ and the ‘confirm password’ fields to user. But when the user clicked the submit button, how could I know this is a real request submited by the user instead of a hacker? Maybe I am wrong, but I think hacker can easily simulate such field data, since there is no validation fields.

There are some idea I can think of to validate the request in step f, but I don’t know whether they are right.
1. Add a encrypted cookie in step e and check it in step f?
2. Use a session variable in step e and check it in step f?
3. Add a hidden field in step e and check it in step f?

Are those approaches ok? Which one is better, or is there any better one?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

A user entering their username and reset code should log them into the site just as their username and password would. The difference is you then immediately force them to change their password. With this password reset method you’re implicitly trusting that the user is the owner of the email account where the code was sent.

Edit:

Ok, so I don’t know the first thing about ASP.net.

However, I’ve handled this problem many times before. Here is a solution of mine in PHP:

<?php
class AuthController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
    public function identifyAction()
    {
        if ($this->_request->isPost()) {
            $username = $this->_getParam('username');
            $password = $this->_getParam('password');

            if (empty($username) || empty($password)) {
                $this->_flashError('Username or password cannot be blank.');
            } else {
                $user = new User();
                $result = $user->login($username, $password);

                if ($result->isValid()) {
                    $user->fromArray((array) $this->_auth->getIdentity());

                    if ($this->_getParam('changepass') || $user->is_password_expired) {
                        $this->_redirect('auth/change-password');
                        return;
                    }
                    $this->_doRedirect($user);
                    return;
                } else {
                    $this->_doFailure($result->getIdentity());
                }
            }
        }
        $this->_redirect('/');
    }

    public function forgotPasswordAction()
    {
        if ($this->_request->isPost()) {
            // Pseudo-random uppercase 6 digit hex value
            $resetCode = strtoupper(substr(sha1(uniqid(rand(),true)),0,6));

            Doctrine_Query::create()
                ->update('dUser u')
                ->set('u.reset_code', '?', array($resetCode))
                ->where('u.username = ?', array($this->_getParam('username')))
                ->execute();

            $mail = new Zend_Mail();
            $mail->setBodyText($this->_resetEmailBody($this->_getParam('username'), $resetCode));
            $mail->setFrom('[e-mail]', 'Example');
            $mail->addTo($this->_getParam('username'));
            $mail->setSubject('Forgotten Password Request');
            $mail->send();


            $this->_flashNotice("Password reset request received.");
            $this->_flashNotice("An email with further instructions, including your <em>Reset Code</em>, has been sent to {$this->_getParam('username')}.");
            $this->_redirect("auth/reset-password/username/{$this->_getParam('username')}");
        }
    }

    public function resetPasswordAction()
    {
        $this->view->username = $this->_getParam('username');
        $this->view->reset_code = $this->_getParam('reset_code');

        if ($this->_request->isPost()) {
            $formData = $this->_request->getParams();
            if (empty($formData['username']) || empty($formData['reset_code'])) {
                $this->_flashError('Username or reset code cannot be blank.');
                $this->_redirect('auth/reset-password');
            } elseif ($formData['new_password'] !== $formData['confirm_password']) {
                $this->_flashError('Password and confirmation do not match.');
                $this->_redirect('auth/reset-password');
            } else {
                $user = new User();
                $result = $user->loginWithResetCode($formData['username'], $formData['reset_code']);

                if ($result->isValid()) {
                    $user->updatePassword($result->getIdentity(), $formData['new_password']);

                    $user->fromArray((array) $this->_auth->getIdentity());
                    $this->_setLegacySessionData($user);

                    $this->_flashNotice('Password updated successfully!');
                    $this->_doRedirect($user);
                } else {
                    $this->_doFailure($result->getIdentity());
                    $this->_redirect('auth/reset-password');
                }
            }
        }
    }

    protected function _doFailure($username)
    {
        $user = Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->select('u.is_locked')
            ->where('u.username = ?', array($username))
            ->fetchOne();

        if ($user->is_locked) {
            $lockedMessage = Config::get('auth.lock_message');
            if (!$lockedMessage) {
                $lockedMessage = 'This account has been locked.';
            }
            $this->_flashError($lockedMessage);
        } else {
            $this->_flashError('Invalid username or password');
        }
    }
}

If you can follow this, it should give you a good idea of what to do. I’ll try to summarize:

identifyAction

This is the regular “login” using username and password. It logs the user in and stores their identity in the session.

forgotPasswordAction

This presents the user with a form requesting their username. After entering their username a reset code is generated, stored in their entry in the user table, and they are emailed as well as redirected to the reset password page. This page is unauthenticated, the user is not logged in.

resetPasswordAction

This is where the user is presented with the “resetPassword” form. They must provide their username and the reset code they received via email. This authenticates the user with the given username and reset code, just as if the reset code were a password. If the credentials are valid the user is then redirected to the changePassword action where they are permitted to change their password. The changePasswordAction (not shown) requires the user be authenticated (logged in) either via username/password or username/resetCode

Hope this helps.