CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpandroidsecurityencryption
one_man
one_man

Reputation: 134

Security in data transmission

I'm creating a server(PHP) to store data from android app. With POST query store name, password and email. These data as mentioned are stored on the server (database on hosting). But I have a lot of questions how to do it correctly:

  1. First is the backend, how to protect data and how to encrypt them?
  2. I know that you can transfer token of android application on the web (server). And there it checked for accuracy, but android application is easy to decompile. How to be in this case?
  3. Also heard of RSA but examples show how the mechanism works. And when used in RSA, I have the private key stored on the server and the public in android application? But what if I we obtain encrypted data from the server on android? I need to decrypt them using the private key. But the key on the server and store the private key on Android ill (paragraph 2, decompiling).
  4. Other...

Please leave comments. Also describe every paragraph of my question, and it is desirable for each paragraph post a link with useful information. Also, I would appreciate any HELPFUL links related to this topic, well, especially your opinion and how best to do it.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 440

Answers (1)

SOFe
SOFe

Reputation: 8214

I assume that you are trying to create a basic register/login-to-use-this-app mechanism.

  1. Read the PHP FAQ article on password saving on why and how for secure data saving server-side. Basically, to hash (to irreversibly encrypt) sensitive data before directly saving them.
  2. Regarding your second question, Generally, it is not a big concern on directly transmitting sensitive data between client and server, because there can be these security measures:
    1. Use HTTPS. This will encrypt the stream of data transmission, and it is less vulnerable to the connection being eavesdropped.
    2. You may want to directly send the hash of the password instead of the password itself in the post request, or in other words, use the hash of the user password as the password.

Client frontend

In terms of internal storage, it is not possible to prevent other installed malicious apps from reading and using data you store, unless you (I am not familiar with this) store them in a storage that is only accessible by your own app.

Server backend

There are some servers that distribute OAuth tokens to clients, such as GitHub. However, if you only expect the server login API to be used by your own apps, OAuth isn't necessary in this case, since it is mainly used as a flexible permission bearer which you don't need to concern for your own app.

Instead, the more important thing is how you handle things server-side. For the web API that I once coded for my own server, although I don't expect others to use it, I made the API designed as if it is for the public to use, and pay attention to unexpected client input. This is because clients can be fake anytime, so never trust the integrity of what clients input. (Forgive my obsession, but I even considered backend of my JavaScript on webpages as "clients" to be safe)

I have never used nor have any comprehensive knowledge on other PHP frameworks, but when I work on my website, I would create a safety layer within my own backend code. I separate my backend into two levels, namely the database level and the interface level. The database level should try not let the interface level even get the data that are not supposed to be known by (the current authentication state of) the client, so as to minimize the chance of security vulnerability.

Client-server communication

So this only leaves the problem of data transmission, which is the main point of this question.

As mentioned above, HTTPS would be good enough to encrypt data transmission.

I do not know if this concept is practical, but after initial registration, it might be, if you are obsessive enough, possible to encrypt the data with a timestamp, etc. I am not quite sure about this, but disconnected tokens inspired me on this.

But how much protection you need still depends on what kind of data you are sending. For example, if you are simply tracking user usage, you don't really need a lot of protection for it. Just make sure that the user's original password cannot be leaked by hashing it.

Upvotes: 3

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