Broken Authentication Lab

🔐Learning Objective: Broken Authentication & Session Management

Broken authentication occurs when application functions related to authentication and session management are implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or exploit other implementation flaws to assume users' identities.

Common Vulnerabilities:

• Client-side Authentication: Trust decisions made in browser
• Weak Session Management: Predictable or unsecured tokens
• Missing Authorization: No server-side permission checks
• Session Fixation: Reusing session IDs across privilege levels

Attack Outcomes:

• Privilege escalation to admin access
• Account takeover and impersonation
• Access to sensitive business data
• Unauthorized system modifications

Login

Test Credentials:

Admin: admin / admin

User: any username / any password

Exploit Techniques

Client-side Admin Toggle

Change localStorage isAdmin value to 'true'

Token Manipulation

Modify the auth token to include admin privileges

Direct Role Override

Directly modify user role in localStorage

💡 Manual Exploitation: Open browser DevTools → Application → Local Storage

Try manually editing the 'currentUser', 'authToken', or 'isAdmin' values to see how client-side authentication can be bypassed.

📚Understanding Broken Authentication

What's Wrong Here?

🔓 Client-side authentication: User roles stored in localStorage

🔓 No server validation: API trusts client-provided tokens

🔓 Weak session management: Predictable token generation

🔓 No authorization checks: Admin panel accessible to anyone

Guided Exploitation

Login with Any Credentials

Inspect Browser Storage

Open DevTools → Application → Local Storage to see stored authentication data.