Broken authentication is the . This usually means that session management and authentication aren't handled correctly. This gives attackers several avenues to get access to data they can use maliciously. second highest security risk for web applications That's why it is important to make sure you get the best practices in place as early in the development process as possible. You can do a few things to make your authentication process more secure and protect your users. We'll go over a few of those things with a quick Node.js app. First, let's go over some of the different ways you can handle authentication. Authentication methods There are a few different types of authentication methods you can choose from: session-based, token-based, and passwordless. Each of these authentication methods has its pros and cons and we'll go over a few of them. Session-based authentication This is the most common form of authentication. It only requires a username and password that match what's in a database. If a user enters the correct set of login credentials, they will have a session initialized for them with a specific ID. A session is typically ended when a user logs out of the app. When sessions are implemented correctly, they will automatically expire after a set amount of time. You'll see this a lot in finance apps, like banking and trading. This gives users an added layer of security in case they've logged into their bank account on a public computer and forgot about that tab. Token-based authentication Instead of using actual credentials to authenticate requests, token-based authentication gives users a temporary token that's stored in the browser. This token is typically a that contains all of the information an endpoint will need to validate a user. JWT (JSON Web Token) Every request that a user makes will include that token. One of the benefits to using a token is that they can have embedded information about what roles and permissions a user might have without fetching that data from a database. This gives attackers less access to critical information, even if they are able to steal a user's token. Passwordless authentication This form of authentication is completely different from the others. There is no need for credentials to log in. All you need is an email address or phone number associated with an account and you will get a magic link or one-time password each time you want to log in. As soon as you click the link, you'll get redirected to the app and you'll already be logged in. After that, the magic link isn't valid so no one else can use it. When the magic link is generated, a JWT is also generated with it. This is how the authentication happens. With this login method, it's a lot harder for attackers to hack their way into your system. There are fewer inputs for them to take advantage of and sending the JWT through the magic link makes them harder to intercept than sending them through a response. Now that you know about these different authentication methods, let's implement a passwordless authentication model. Implementing authentication in Node Passwordless authentication flow We'll start by going through the process flow of passwordless authentication. A user submits their email address or phone number in the web app. They are sent a magic link to log in with. The user clicks the magic link and they are redirected to the app, already logged in. Now that we have the flow we need to implement, let's start by making a super basic front-end. Front-end setup We don't even need to use a JavaScript framework since the focus is mostly on the back-end. So we'll use some basic HTML and JavaScript to make the front-end. Here's what the user interface code will be. Just a small HTML file that uses a frontend.js file. Passwordless Authentication This is where you'll put your email to get a magic link. Enter your email address Get magic link <!DOCTYPE html> < > html < > head < > title </ > title < = > script src "./frontend.js" </ > script </ > head < > body < > h1 </ > h1 < > form < > div < = > label for "email_address" </ > label < = = /> input type "email" id "email_address" </ > div < = = > button type "submit" id "submit_email" </ > button </ > form </ > body </ > html This is what the frontend.js file will look like. .onload = { submitButton = .getElementById( ); emailInput = .getElementById( )
  submitButton.addEventListener( , handleAuth); { message = axios.post( , { : emailInput.value
    }); message;
  }
}; window => () const document "submit_email" const document "email_address" "click" /** This function submits the request to the server for sending the user a magic link.
   * Params: email address
   * Returns: message
   */ async ( ) function handleAuth const await "http://localhost:4300/login" email return The JavaScript file gets the submit button we made in the HTML file and adds a click event listener to it. So when the button is clicked, we'll make a POST request to the server we have running on at the endpoint with the email address entered. Then, if the POST request is successful, we will get a message back we can show to the user. http://localhost:4300 login Back-end setup Now we're going to start making our Node app. We'll start by making an express app and installing a few packages. cors ; express ; PORT = process.env.PORT || ; app = express(); app.use(cors());
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ : })); app.post( , (req, res) => { email = req.body.email; (!email) {
    res.statusCode( );
    res.send({ : ,
    });
  } (email) {
    res.statusCode( );
    res.send(email);
  }
}); server = app.listen(PORT, () => { .info( + PORT)
}) server import from "cors" import from "express" const 4000 const // Set up middleware extended false // Login endpoint "/login" const if 403 message "There is no email address that matches this." if 200 // Start up the server on the port defined in the environment const console "Server running on port " export default With this basic server in place, we can start adding more functionality. Let's go ahead and add the email service we're going to use. First, add to your package.json and then import it. nodemailer import nodeMailer from "nodemailer"; Then below the middleware, we'll make a transporter to send emails. This code configures and makes the email template with some simple HTML. nodemailer transport = nodeMailer.createTransport({ : process.env.EMAIL_HOST, : , : { : process.env.EMAIL_USER, : process.env.EMAIL_PASSWORD
  }
}); emailTemplate = // Set up email const host port 587 auth user pass // Make email template for magic link const ( ) => { username, link } `
  <h2>Hey </h2>
  <p>Here's the login link you just requested:</p>
  <p> </p>
` ${username} ${link} Next, we need to make our token that holds the user's info. This is just an example of some of the basic things you might include in a token. You could also include things like, user permissions, special access keys, and other information that might be used in your app. makeToken = { expirationDate = ();
  expirationDate.setHours( ().getHours() + ); jwt.sign({ email, expirationDate }, process.env.JWT_SECRET_KEY);
}; // Generate token const ( ) => email const new Date new Date 1 return Now we can update the endpoint to send a magic link to registered users and they'll be logged in to the app as soon as they click it. login app.post( , (req, res) => { { email } = req.body; (!email) {
    res.status( );
    res.send({ : ,
    });
  } token = makeToken(email); mailOptions = { : , : emailTemplate({
      email, : ,
    }), : , : email,
  }; transport.sendMail(mailOptions, (error) => { (error) {
      res.status( );
      res.send( );
    } {
      res.status( );
      res.send( );
    }
  });
}); // Login endpoint "/login" const if 404 message "You didn't enter a valid email address." const const from "You Know" html link `http://localhost:8080/account?token= ` ${token} subject "Your Magic Link" to return if 404 "Can't send email." else 200 `Magic link sent. : http://localhost:8080/account?token= ` ${token} There are only two more things we need to add to the code to get the server finished. Let's add an endpoint. Then we'll add a simple authentication method. account app.get( , (req, res) => {
  isAuthenticated(req, res)
}); // Get account information "/account" This gets the user's token from the front-end and calls the authentication function. isAuthenticated = { { token } = req.query (!token) {
    res.status( )
    res.send( ) } decoded {
    decoded = jwt.verify(token, process.env.JWT_SECRET_KEY)
  } {
    res.status( )
    res.send( ) } (!decoded.hasOwnProperty( ) || !decoded.hasOwnProperty( )) {
    res.status( )
    res.send( ) } { expirationDate } = decoded (expirationDate < ()) {
    res.status( )
    res.send( ) }
  res.status( )
  res.send( )
} const ( ) => req, res const if 403 "Can't verify user." return let try catch 403 "Invalid auth credentials." return if "email" "expirationDate" 403 "Invalid auth credentials." return const if new Date 403 "Token has expired." return 200 "User has been validated." This authentication check gets the user's token from the URL query and tries to decode it with the secret that was used to create it. If that fails, it returns an error message to the front-end. If the token is successfully decoded, a few more checks occur and then the user is authenticated and has access to the app! Best practices for existing authentication systems Passwordless authentication might not be possible for existing systems, but there are things you can do to make your apps more secure. Increase the complexity requirements of passwords. Use two-factor authentication. Require passwords to be changed after a certain amount of time. Conclusion There are a lot of different ways you can implement an authentication system for your app and passwordless is just one of those. Token-based is another commonly used type of authentication and there are plenty of ways to handle this. Making your own authentication system might take more work than you have time for. There are a lot of existing libraries and services that you can use to integrate authentication in your app. Some of the most commonly used ones are Passport.js and Auth0. Previously published at https://dev.to/flippedcoding/implementing-passwordless-authentication-in-node-js-43m0

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