Authentication Best Practices: Protecting Against Hijacking, Brute Force Attacks, and Secure Use of Refresh Tokens

Authentication Best Practices: Protecting Against Hijacking, Brute Force Attacks, and Secure Use of Refresh Tokens

1. Protection Against Token Hijacking

Token hijacking happens when an attacker intercepts or steals an authentication token — like a JWT — and uses it to access protected resources as if they were the legitimate user.

To prevent this kind of attack:

• Always use HTTPS to avoid sending tokens in plain text.
• Use short-lived access tokens.
• Implement refresh tokens with session control and secure storage (e.g., HttpOnly cookies).
• Enable refresh token rotation, invalidating the previous token each time a new one is issued.
• Bind tokens to the user-agent or IP address to detect suspicious usage.

2. Protection Against Brute Force Attacks

Brute force attacks involve trying many combinations of passwords or tokens until the correct one is found.

Effective protection strategies include:

• Use rate limiting per IP or user.
• Apply temporary account lockouts after multiple failed login attempts.
• Use CAPTCHA to block automated bots.
• Require strong passwords and hash them securely using algorithms like bcrypt or argon2.
• Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA).

3. Secure Use of Refresh Tokens

Refresh tokens allow the application to issue new access tokens without forcing the user to log in again frequently.

Best practices include:

• Keep the access token lifespan short (5–15 minutes).
• Store the refresh token using HttpOnly, Secure, and SameSite=”strict” cookie settings.
• Use refresh token rotation: issue a new one and invalidate the old one on each use.
• Revoke refresh tokens during logout or when suspicious activity is detected.
• Implement a token blacklist or secure token store with controlled expiration.
• Assign specific scopes to each token (e.g., read-only, write, etc.).