Sc Auth

SC: Authentication Flaws

Purpose

Detects authentication vulnerabilities including weak password policies, missing brute force protection, insecure password storage, authentication bypass, hardcoded credentials, insecure password reset flows, and missing multi-factor authentication. Covers session-based, JWT, OAuth, and API key authentication models.

Activation

Called by sc-orchestrator during Phase 2. Runs against all web applications and APIs.

Phase 1: Discovery

File Patterns to Search

**/*auth*, **/*login*, **/*signin*, **/*signup*, **/*register*,
**/*password*, **/*credential*, **/*token*, **/*session*,
**/*oauth*, **/*mfa*, **/*2fa*, **/middleware/*, **/guards/*

Keyword Patterns to Search

# Password hashing
"md5(", "sha1(", "sha256(", "hashlib.md5", "hashlib.sha1",
"MessageDigest.getInstance(\"MD5\"", "MessageDigest.getInstance(\"SHA-1\"",
"bcrypt", "argon2", "scrypt", "pbkdf2", "password_hash(",
"crypto.createHash("

# Authentication logic
"password ==", "password ===", "password.equals(",
"authenticate(", "login(", "verify_password(", "check_password(",
"compareSync(", "compare("

# Hardcoded credentials
"password = \"", "password = '", "passwd", "secret",
"api_key = \"", "token = \"", "admin:admin", "root:root"

# Brute force protection
"rate_limit", "throttle", "max_attempts", "lockout",
"login_attempts", "failed_attempts"

Vulnerability Categories

1. Weak Password Hashing:

# VULNERABLE: MD5/SHA for password storage
password_hash = hashlib.md5(password.encode()).hexdigest()

# SAFE: bcrypt with appropriate cost factor
password_hash = bcrypt.hashpw(password.encode(), bcrypt.gensalt(rounds=12))

2. Missing Brute Force Protection:

// VULNERABLE: No rate limiting on login
app.post('/login', async (req, res) => {
  const user = await User.findOne({ email: req.body.email });
  if (user && await bcrypt.compare(req.body.password, user.password)) {
    return res.json({ token: generateToken(user) });
  }
  return res.status(401).json({ error: 'Invalid credentials' });
});

// SAFE: With rate limiting
const loginLimiter = rateLimit({ windowMs: 15 * 60 * 1000, max: 5 });
app.post('/login', loginLimiter, async (req, res) => { /* ... */ });

3. Timing-Safe Comparison:

// VULNERABLE: Non-constant-time comparison
if token == expectedToken { /* ... */ }

// SAFE: Constant-time comparison
if subtle.ConstantTimeCompare([]byte(token), []byte(expectedToken)) == 1 { /* ... */ }

4. Account Enumeration:

# VULNERABLE: Different responses reveal account existence
if not user_exists(email):
    return error("User not found")
if not check_password(password):
    return error("Wrong password")

# SAFE: Generic error message
if not user_exists(email) or not check_password(email, password):
    return error("Invalid email or password")

Phase 2: Verification

Sanitization Check

1. Are passwords hashed with bcrypt/argon2/scrypt (adaptive cost)?
2. Is brute force protection implemented on login endpoints?
3. Are password reset tokens time-limited and single-use?
4. Is timing-safe comparison used for secrets/tokens?

Severity Classification

• Critical: Hardcoded admin credentials, authentication bypass, plaintext password storage
• High: MD5/SHA1 password hashing, missing brute force protection on public login
• Medium: Account enumeration, weak password policy, missing MFA on sensitive operations
• Low: Non-constant-time token comparison, verbose authentication error messages

Output Format

Finding: AUTH-{NNN}

• Title: {Authentication vulnerability type}
• Severity: Critical | High | Medium | Low
• Confidence: 0-100
• File: file/path:line
• Vulnerability Type: CWE-287 (Improper Authentication) | CWE-798 (Hardcoded Credentials) | CWE-916 (Weak Password Hash)
• Description: {What was found}
• Impact: {Account takeover, credential theft, unauthorized access}
• Remediation: {Specific fix}
• References: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/287.html

Common False Positives

1. Test/fixture credentials — hardcoded passwords in test files for test accounts
2. Password hashing in migration — hashing algorithm in migration code for legacy compatibility
3. Hash functions for non-security purposes — MD5/SHA used for checksums, cache keys, not passwords
4. Environment variable reads — os.getenv("SECRET") reads at runtime, not hardcoded
5. OAuth provider configuration — OAuth client IDs (public) vs client secrets (should be env var)