Weakness (CWE)

CWE-640: Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password

Base Incomplete

The product contains a mechanism for users to recover or change their passwords without knowing the original password, but the mechanism is weak.

How to prevent it (6 mitigations)

Architecture and Design

Make sure that all input supplied by the user to the password recovery mechanism is thoroughly filtered and validated.
Architecture and Design

Do not use standard weak security questions and use several security questions.
Architecture and Design

Make sure that there is throttling on the number of incorrect answers to a security question. Disable the password recovery functionality after a certain (small) number of incorrect guesses.
Architecture and Design

Require that the user properly answers the security question prior to resetting their password and sending the new password to the e-mail address of record.
Architecture and Design

Never allow the user to control what e-mail address the new password will be sent to in the password recovery mechanism.
Architecture and Design

Assign a new temporary password rather than revealing the original password.

Nothing found.