Query strings and security

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Revision as of 12:31, 12 November 2013 by Tony (talk | contribs) (Created page with "Mibbit supports a large set of options for the [Widget], most are allowed inside the URL. But it's commonly understood that passing sensitive information over query strings is ne...")
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Mibbit supports a large set of options for the [Widget], most are allowed inside the URL. But it's commonly understood that passing sensitive information over query strings is never a good idea. Even using SSL (https://) the data in query strings is at risk at several points along the way from web browser to server.

So would it ever be a good idea to send a password data as a query string? It's a common question and our answer is always in the negative. There are several reasons for this;

  • password data would be stored in weblogs:

We could encrypt or remove these right?

  • data will be stored in browser histories

Only client browser has control of these

  • http:// referrer gets sent the referring URL, including the whole query string

So someone could pick this up

So in short it's just not a great idea, it might be workable for some uses, but not for passwords.