I'm currently working on a project where I would need to Read and possibly update information from tracking records. I haven't found anything in the Knowledge Base that refers to any kind of tracking record (LoanApp, Account, Share, etc) access through the API. Is it possible to read and or update fields in any of the tracking records?
There isn't much support for reading and updating tracking records (I'm assuing you mean SymXchange external tracking records) via the API. Updating, in particular, is not available.
For reading, one option may be to have the Banno Admin at the financial institution enable the Restricted Claim which is https://api.banno.com/consumer/claim/external_tracking_records (that's a scope name, not a URL). You'll want to read this page in the Authentication Framework docs: https://jackhenry.dev/open-api-docs/authentication-framework/overview/openidconnectoauth/
The gist is that the claim (when enabled by the admin at the FI, and also requested by your code) provides SymXchange external tracking records as part of the Identity Token.
Related
I maintain and develop a web application that's used online but also offline.
(Offline meaning installed on 30 something laptops that use MySQL for database)
For the people who uses the offline version, I have a synchronization system in place.
This synchronization exchanges newly updated info from the live version to the offline version and vice versa.
I have a recurrent problem, that sometimes the sync works and sometimes not.
(Often is about duplicate key already exists.)
I have an appointment table that has an ID (primary key).
How would you determine that an appointment created offline is the same that one that already exists online and vice versa also?
That exact appointment doesn't have the same id offline and online.
Hope is clear enough!
Why the offline and the online IDs are different? The sync system doesn't copy the same row with all the same informations from/to the online database?
Anyway you need to implement a logic to create the offline IDs in a way that, at least a part of it, is uniquely bindable to an offline station/user.
For example: if you are offline and want to save a new appointment, build an ID crafted like this:
"useridWhoCreatedTheAppointment + UserLocalCounter"
or
"useridWhoCreatedTheAppointment + datetimeToString(ddMMyyHHmmssSSS)"
In this way you won't have any duplicate key.
im struggling to find the best practice to this so any links or research reading materials or any Google search terms will be much appreciated.
Im a volunteer for a local charity organization, a childcare setting.
We have a mysql database that contains various tables containing children & Parent information, invoices, staff rotas etc.
What we would like to attempt to do is have secure online access for parents to view there own contact details and invoices.
My question is, is it safe to allow the website to have access to the main database. it would be a second set of userPermisions with only read access to select tables and not the entire database.
I don't want the website to open up a hole to allow users to obtain all our data or destroy or corrupt the main database.
Or
should i create a second database that the website will have access to and have the main database sync with the second? I can see future issues if we decide to allow parents to edit there own contact details, pay invoices online.
Web specific details will be kept in a second database such as user name password, forum etc
Its not any thing iv ever attempted to do before and don't know where to start in terms of research.
Kind regards
Matt
You certainly couldn't hurt anything by having a second, slave/read-only database accessible to your user interface. If done properly, MySQL grants can restrict users to read-only operations, so it's not necessary from a functional standpoint to have a second database. Perhaps, given the nature of your business, there may be a legal reason why you must have a second database though. Be sure to investigate the requirements for protecting PII (e.g. HIPPA)
Security is an ongoing process - part of it is ensuring proper identification and authorization as well as defense in depth - ensuring that the account used to access the database has least privileges and that the surface area exposed to that account is minimal. Also if the database is on the same machine as the web server, then ensuring that a compromise of the web server doesn't also compromise the database.
You also have to contend with the standard social elements - ensuring users have a way to get their first password/setup an account, maintain their own passwords. You should not store their passwords (even encrypted), but instead store only a salted hash. When they forget their password, the reset it themselves, since the web site cannot and should not send them a permanent password via email.
And you should be aware of XSS (cross-site scripting attacks), SQL injection - you should be able to find references to that in most discussions of web application development.
I am developing a swing based DEFECT TRACKER application.
The problem is I have to maintain user sessions. I do not have a clue how to do this. Many users may access the system simultaneously and enter their own data. This is a basic scenario seen at many places.
Like any login based application we have.
These are the following answers I can think of:
If the user logs in before performing any activity, you could easily maintain session information based on the login ID.
If there is no necessity for the user to login, you can track the clients connected at the entry point of your application and maintain a map of them. Since each user is not logging in explicitly, you might want to track the clients based on the IP address they are logging in from.
You could assign each Swing client downloaded an unique GUID and send that along with each request.
Of course, the caveat is if there are a lot of concurrent users accessing the system, you have to implement a queuing system and also make sure that your server code is thread safe.
A completely different approach is use to JSPs or Servlets.
In my country the online payments are not an old thing, the first time i saw a web application taking payments directly to a local bank account was last year.
So, Im a newbie coding web payment system.
My question is, what are the best practices to store creditcard information into the database...
I have many ideas: encrypting the creditcard, database security restriction, etc.
What have you done?
DON'T DO IT
There is simply far too much risk involved, and you will typically need to be externally audited to ensure that you're complying with all the relevant local laws and security practises.
There are many third-party companies that do it for you that have already gone through all trouble of making sure their system is secure, that they comply with local laws and so on. An example in the US that I have used in the past is authorize.net. Some banks also have systems that you can hook into to store credit card data and process payments.
I realise the country you're in may not have as strict laws as the U.S., but in my opinion that's no excuse for rolling your own. When you're dealing with other people's money, the risk is just too much to warrant.
In 2020, use Stripe, and avoid storing payment information yourself.
HISTORICAL ANSWER:
For this, I recommend a comprehensive, layered approach.
First, storing credit card info should be an option.
Secondly, the data should be stored securely, using a strong form of encryption. I recommend AES with 256bit key size. Make sure when choosing your key, you use the entire keyspace (it's a rookie mistake to just use a randomly generated alphanumericsymbol string as a key).
Third, the AES key needs to be properly secured. Do not embed the value inside your code. If you are using windows, consider using DPAPI.
Fourth, you will want to setup database permissions so that applications and computers will have access on a need to know basis.
Fifth, secure the connection string to your database.
Sixth, ensure that any application that will have access to the credit card data, will properly secure it.
At miniumum follow the PA DSS (Payment Appliction Data Security Standard). More info can be found here:
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pa_dss.shtml
Also it would be wise to look at PCI DSS, which could be found here:
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss.shtml
You should avoid storing any credit card information due to the risks to you and to customers of doing so.
Encrypt encrypt encrypt. Don't decrypt if you don't absolutely have to - don't decrypt to show the last 4 digits. Don't decrypt to tell the user what their card was.
In fact, if you can, don't even keep the encrypted card numbers in the same physical server as the rest of the user information.
Authorize.net has a Customer Information Manager API that allows you to store customer information in their system. It costs $20/mo. as an add-on to your account.
I suggest you encrypt card numbers with a strong algorithm( similar AES) and a long secret key.
Then,keep your secret key in a secure place similar an external hard or optical disk.
When you need to secret key,use external hard.
If you are using a shared host, you have to store your secret key in an external device.
Strict your database
Define strict users for your database
Remove root user of your database if it is not needed.
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/fruit/orange, server returns JSON information about the orange. Here is the problem: I only want websites I permit to access this service. With a simple API key system, any website could quickly attain a key by copying the key from an authorized website's (potentially) client side code. I have looked at OAuth, but it seems a little complicated for what I am doing. Solutions?
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
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/
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.
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.
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.'