TLDR: All I want to do is secure my cloud function in Parse so that it only accepts requests from my iOS app. How can I do that?
Longer version:
I recently got started with using Parse for a client side app I'm building using a Google API.
Before using Parse, my issue was that the Google API calls from my app were not secure. I tried a Man in the middle attack on my app, and I was able to successfully get the bundle id and app id (Google claims some form of security is achieved by ensuring that the call is from the correct bundle id that you can specify on their console). So despite using SSL, seems like it was easy to get this information. Now this Google API is paid, so someone could easily abuse my key when I release my app and raise my bills.
I was anyways also thinking of doing some lightweight work in the backend, so I figured to use Parse. Now the call to the Google API is done in Cloud Code. But a new problem I'm facing is how to secure calls to the Cloud function I've defined in Parse? The Parse App ID and Client Key aren't secure at all.
All of Parse's blogs keep talking about creating users and defining ACLs etc. But in my case, there is no data in my Parse app and there is no user per se. It simply calls the Google API and returns the result. All I want to do is secure my cloud function so that it only accepts requests from my iOS app. How can I do that?
The inherent security risk here is that any key you store in your app is vulnerable, for that reason encryption is also vulnerable. My recommendation is to use the automatic user in Parse on your iOS app, you could even throttle excessive requests/abuse by a single user. By creating and using a user you are able to gain the benefits of ACL which appears the best security option available in Parse currently. At that point you send the automatic user in your cloud code request and verify it's a valid iOS user.
Related
I'm trying to setup Kahuna for my iOS app, and haven't been able to find a clear answer - the docs says that the secret key is meant to be used with the API Key for authenticating requests, but I can't find anything that states clearly if either of these should be kept secret/out of source code. Are these safe to put in my code, or should they be kept on the server side?
Thanks
Are these safe to put in my code, or should they be kept on the server side?
Short Answer is no for keeping them on the mobile app code and yes to keep them on the server side.
Why?
Because they will be static secrets in your mobile app code, thus they are easily extracted by using any reverse engineer tool, like using the Mobile Security Framewrok(MSF) to decompile the app binary.
Alternatives?
Well you can try code obfuscation, to generate the secrets dynamical in the mobile app or to store the secrets in the iOS keychain, but once more they can be reverse engineered at run-time, once more by using the MSF tool.
Possible Solution?
The best approach is to use a Mobile App Attestation service to protect the connection between the mobile app and the API server, that will guarantee at run-time that your App is not being man in the middle attacked, being tampered with, that is not running in a rooted or jail broken device and that is the same original one uploaded into the app store. This is done in the background without impacting the user experience by using an SDK integrated in your App and a service running in the cloud.
With this guarantees in place we don't need any-more to store secrets in the mobile app for Authentication, Authenticity and Integrity purposes, thus any access to third part services within the App can now be delegated to the API server that will be able to do a better job of protecting all the necessary secrets to access the third part services, like storing them in a vault.
You can find a Mobile App Attestation service in Approov(I work here) that provides SDKs for several platforms, including iOS. The integration will also need a small check in the API server code to verify the JWT token. This check is necessary for the API server to be able to decide what requests to serve and what ones to deny.
I was just wondering if there was a simple function to create a customer in the Stripe API from my app in Swift? Instead of having to create a manual HTTP post request to my server, "createCustomer.php", and then retrieve the results (This is what I do right now).
I tried to search this up on Google, but I can't seem to find anything. I simply want the user to save their card details for later user, that's why I am in need of creating a customer.
Thanks in advance!
Except for payment information tokenization (which is done via Stripe's iOS or Android SDKs in mobile apps, and Checkout or Stripe.js in web apps), all API requests must be sent from a backend server.
The reason is that aside from token creation, all other API requests must be sent using your secret API key. You cannot embed or share the secret API key with your mobile app in any way, as it would then be possible for an attacker to retrieve it and use it to issue API requests on your behalf.
This is why there is no Swift function to create a customer -- the customer creation must be done from your backend, using the server-side language of your choice.
I have a mobile app (React native) that I am using with ParseReact with and have it so the user can immediately send data to parse inside the app. How can I lock this down so that parse.com will only take data from users with the APP installed?
Mitigations I have thought about:
Using ip address, geolocation, deviceUUID (per app)
Possible encrypting traffic to parse to hide something secret?
I know 98% of users will likely be nice and not fake this but I'm worried about the hackers
The short answer is you can't. If you give public access to any of your classes, anyone can write to it and you will have no control on who is reading the data. You can make it difficult for someone to send write requests outside of your app by embedding a signature in your app and forcing all your public writes to go through cloud functions. You use the signature to sign every write request and send the signed token as a parameter to your cloud functions where it will be verified before you accept a request. But remember a cracker can easily find your signature in your app binary so this not bulletproof.
I'm creating a simple iPhone app. The basic premise is that the app will display some data (That I provide online) on the application. The data changes over time, so the app has to draw the data from online and display it. I don't have a significant programming background so I don't want to use my own server.
Thus, I thought it would be significantly easier to just put the data into some documents on a Google account and then access them programmatically via the Google Drive API. I could then update the data in my Drive account and it would get updated in the application. The key here is that I am ONLY accessing ONE account that I own MYSELF. The users' accounts are not being accessed. Therefore the goal is to never have to log in manually. It should all happen behind the scenes, aka, it should look like a server, not a google doc.
With this in mind, it doesn't make sense to show the Google Accounts sign-in page to my users as the standard OAuth2.0 tutorial shows here:https://developers.google.com/drive/quickstart-ios#step_1_enable_the_drive_api
I should be able to access my own data by somehow hardcoding in my username, password etc. Google agrees here: https://developers.google.com/drive/service-accounts#use_regular_google_accounts_as_application-owned_accounts
The above link mentions a "refresh token" that I'm supposed to save. However, I have no idea how to build and save that token, or even for that matter, where to find it.
I've gone through both the basic tutorial and the Dr. Edit Tutorial for iOS, but they both assume that the application is accessing USER accounts not application-owned accounts.
I'm not asking for someone to write the code for me (though tidbits are nice), but if you can point me to a step-by-step guide or related sample code that would help me get started that would be awesome. I'll even come back and post the code that I use!
EDIT: Since I realized that the Google Drive API wasn't something I could use for what I am trying to do, I eventually found Parse which is an awesome tool that handles all the server backend for me and is free at the basic level.
Google APIs objective-C client library doesn't support service (application-owned) accounts, because they are supposed to be used by a server-side apps, instead of clients -- you shouldn't be distributing your private key as a part of an app.
If you would like to distribute content from a service account, maybe you should write a server leg to do the authentication and pass clients credentials in a secure way for them to talk to the API on the behalf of the service account. Or, use Web publishing to make documents universally accessible without authorization and authentication if privacy is not a concern.
I'm trying to make an Autocomplete field which should fetch cities as the user types, by using the Google Places API as described in this tutorial:
https://developers.google.com/places/training/autocomplete-android
You've probably found this question around many times before as I did, but none of the answers helped me. Here are the things you should know:
The URL is
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?sensor=false&key=myKey&components=country:ro&input=whatTheUserTypes
Please don't reply by saying you replaced the API key with your own and it worked - the API key which goes there must be Android specific and won't work from a browser.
So did I make the Android API key using the SHA1 fingerprint obtained from the keystore I signed the app with.
I turned on Maps and Places APIs from the console.
The quota isn't exceeded.
All those and it still gives me REQUEST_DENIED
What I didn't mention is that I have O2Auth activated - does that change anything? Shouldn't it be as simple as putting the API key in the app?
Thanks!
Although this has been answered, I think the community could do better.
I was tearing my hair out about this, it just didn't make sense to me.. I was making an iOS/Android App, so I made an iOS/Android Key...
Wrong.
With Google's Places API, your bundle identifier isn't even considered.
What you really want to do is this:
(I'm using the new User Interface)
1. Log into https://cloud.google.com/console#/project
Select your Project Name, then go into API's & Auth > APIs
Make sure you have Places API Turned on. This is the only thing that needs to be turned on for Places-API to work.
2. Go into Credentials
Click CREATE NEW KEY under Public API Access
3. Select BROWSER KEY
4. Click Create, Nothing Else
Leave the HTTP Refer box empty.
5. Use the Key Generated here
This key will allow ANY user from any device access to the API via your Developer login.
You can try it out here: (Be sure to replace YOUR_KEY_HERE with your generated Key)
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?input=Food%20Sh&sensor=false&radius=500&location=0,0&key=YOUR_KEY_HERE
6. Enjoy
Now you can use that URL above in your Android/iOS device.
The Google Places API does not currently support Android or iOS keys generated from the Google APIs Console. Only Server and Browser keys are currently supported.
If you would like to request this support, please file a Places API - Feature Request.
https://developers.google.com/places/training/autocomplete-android
Storing your API key
Although the above code demonstrates how to communicate directly
between an Android app and the Places Autocomplete service, you should
not store your Places API key with your app.
You should therefore build a web application that stores your API key
and proxies the Places API services. In order to secure communication
between your Android app and the proxy web service, you should require
user authentication to your proxy web service. Your Android app can
securely store user credentials and pass them to your web service, or
the user can log into your web app via an Android WebView.
For the latter approach, your web app should create and return a user
authentication token to your Android app, and your Android app should
subsequently pass this token to your proxy web service.
Go to google cloud platform console>Credentials click on edit by selected your YOUR_API_KEY>Application restrictions > select none option>save thats it.
If you select the android apps option from Application restrictions then google deny the place API with exception REQUEST_DENIED.
In Google dev console, you should be able to find both "Places API" and "Places API for Android"
Make sure to use "Places API for Android"
For some reason, "Places API for Android" is hidden in the API list, but can be accessed using search.
I had the same issue , I fix it by leaving
Accept requests from these HTTP referrers (web sites) (Optional)
in browser key Empty
I am still new, so I cannot comment, but to shed some light on Moe's answer, I resolved some similar Google Maps API issues regarding URL queries (for directions, using Volley) with the following steps:
Get Android API Key (including Google Maps Directions API in my case).
Get "Server" API Key (which seems to be created by using a key restriction of "HTTP referrers" these days - really, it's just used to issue URL queries through HTTP).
Store the Android API key as a meta-data tag in the application tag in AndroidManifest.xml with android:name="com.google.android.maps.v2.API_KEY" and android:value as your key. This is used for direct interaction with the Maps API (minus URL queries).
Use the server API key whenever issuing URL queries.
I am not sure if this also applies to URL queries for the Places API, if you only need the server API key, or if there is a better solution, but this worked for me.
I imagine that it works with just the first key - the one not restricted to Android.
Inside Google Cloud Console type Places and Activate it. Create an API Key and insert it onto your Android Studio App as you would do normally. That`s it.
I had the same problem. For me the key was to enable billing on project. I am still using "Applications for Android" restrictions. After setting up the payment method, Places Api started working.
Prior to using the Places SDK for Android, do the following:
Follow the Get an API Key guide to get, add, and restrict an API key.
Enable billing on each of your projects.
Enable the Places API for each of your projects.
See it there.
Be sure also to check out the billing plans for the Google Places API as it is not free!