By default, ASP.NET servers store the HttpSessionState object, its attributes and any objects they reference in memory. This model limits active session state to what can be accommodated by the system memory of a single machine. In order to expand capacity beyond these limitations, servers are frequently configured to persistent session state information, which both expands capacity and permits the replication across multiple machines to improve overall performance. In order to persist its session state, the server must serialize the HttpSessionState object, which requires that all objects stored in it be serializable.

In order for the session to be serialized correctly, all objects the application stores as session attributes must declare the [Serializable] attribute. Additionally, if the object requires custom serialization methods, it must also implement the ISerializable interface.

Example 1: The following class adds itself to the session, but since it is not serializable, the session cannot be serialized correctly.

public class DataGlob {
   String GlobName;
   String GlobValue;

   public void AddToSession(HttpSessionState session) {
     session["glob"] = this;
   }
}

Minification improves page load times for applications that include JavaScript files by reducing the file size. Minification refers to the process of removing unnecessary whitespace, comments, semicolons, braces, shortening the names of local variables and removing unreachable code.

Example 1: The following ASPX code includes the unminified version of Microsoft's jQuery library:

...
<script src="http://applicationserver.application.com/lib/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
...

Unvalidated input is one of the leading causes of vulnerabilities in ASP.NET Web API services. Unchecked input can lead to numerous vulnerabilities, including cross-site scripting, process control, access control, and SQL injection. Although ASP.NET Web API services are generally not susceptible to memory corruption attacks, if an ASP.NET Web API service calls into native code which does not perform array bounds checking, an attacker may be able to use an input validation weakness in the ASP.NET Web API service to launch a buffer overflow attack.

To prevent such attacks:
1. use validation attributes to programmatically annotate validation checks on parameters or members of model-binding object parameters to ASP.NET Web API service actions.
2. use ModelState.IsValid to check if model validation passes.

Microsoft ASP.NET applications can impersonate the security context of the current user or the process that invoked them in order to execute privileged operations. Although impersonation contexts serve a variety of useful purposes, such as reducing the overall number of authentication attempts that must be made, a program that retains elevated privileges unnecessarily poses a risk to the overall security of the system. If an attacker exploits another vulnerability in the program while it is running in another security context, any unauthorized operations the attacker performs will be executed with the corresponding privileges.

Example 1: The following code example represents a typical use pattern for impersonating credentials using the WindowsIdentity.Impersonate() method.

using System.Security.Principal;
...

//Get the identity of the current user
IIdentity contextId = HttpContext.Current.User.Identity;
WindowsIdentity userId = (WindowsIdentity)contextId;

//Temporarily impersonate
WindowsImpersonationContext imp = userId.Impersonate();

//Perform tasks using the caller's security context
DoSecuritySensitiveTasks();

//Clean up and restore our old security context
impersonate.Undo();

The code in Example 1 impersonates the current user's security context and uses it to perform a privileged operation. After calling DoSecuritySensitiveTasks(), the code attempts to restore the original security context, but if DoSecuritySensitiveTasks() throws an exception, the Undo() method will never be called and the program will continue to use the impersonated security context.

ASP.NET Core middleware that is not added to the middleware pipeline in the correct order will not function as intended, leaving an application open to a variety of security issues.

Example 1: The UseCookiePolicy() method adds the cookie policy middleware to the middleware pipeline, allowing for customized cookie policies. When specified in the wrong order as shown, any cookie policy stated by the programmer will be ignored.

...
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(...);
var app = builder.Build(...);
app.UseStaticFiles();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseSession();
app.UseAuthentication();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
    ...
}

app.UseCookiePolicy();
...

ASP.NET Core middleware that is not added to the middleware pipeline in the correct order will not function as intended, leaving an application open to a variety of security issues.

Example 1: The UseHttpsRedirection() method adds HTTPS redirection middleware to the middleware pipeline, which allows for redirection of insecure HTTP requests to a secure HTTPS request. When specified in the wrong order as shown, no meaningful HTTPS redirection will occur before processing the request through the middleware listed before the redirect. This will allow for HTTP requests to be processed by the application before being redirected to the secure HTTPS connection.

...
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(...);
var app = builder.Build(...);
app.UseStaticFiles();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseSession();
app.UseAuthentication();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
    ...
}

app.UseHttpsRedirection();
...

ASP.NET Core middleware that is not added to the middleware pipeline in the correct order will not function as intended, leaving an application open to a variety of security issues.

Example 1: The UseHttpLogging() method adds HTTP logging middleware to the middleware pipeline which allows middleware components to log. When specified in the wrong order as shown, no middleware added to the pipeline before the call to UseHttpLogging() will log.

...
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(...);
var app = builder.Build(...);
app.UseStaticFiles();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseSession();
app.UseAuthentication();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
    ...
}

app.UseHttpLogging();
...

Example 2: The UseWC3Logging() method adds W3C logging middleware to the middleware pipeline which allows middleware components to log. When specified in the wrong order as shown, no middleware added to the pipeline before the call to UseWC3Logging() will log.

...
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(...);
var app = builder.Build(...);
app.UseStaticFiles();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseSession();
app.UseAuthentication();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
    ...
}

app.UseWC3Logging();
...