I have read the functions docs and the authentication codes on the firebase website, but I have no clue if it will be secure or not. I've read the whole of this doc: https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/custom-email-handler
They seem to do all the verification on the website but I can't find the verifyPasswordResetCode(actionCode) function in the node.js doc so what way would you go around this?
Basically, if the user forgets their password/needs to verify their email I want the user to go to my website (I've already configured the custom action URL that is sent when the user requests to reset their email to go to 'mywebsite.com/auth/action/.../'. I know that the my front end (IOS App) needs to verify the code and then In my functions (that's hosted on my website) I need to reset their password, but how would I securely transfer information from the email to my app, to my website with the function to reset their password with the action code. Or can I do it all on my website instead of where they input their new password on the website? I'm guessing using dynamic links?
Thanks,
Nathan
Related
I have implemented the reset password link for my app (using exactly the same firebase code provided at https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/web/manage-users). It works well when I tried it using a gmail account that I have registered previously on the app (I received the reset password link on gmail and able to change for a new password). However, when I tried it with other email domains (like professional work or school domains e.g #mycompany.com or #school.edu), it does not seem to receive the email (not in junk/spam too). It is very weird because I do receive the 'email verification' link (from firebase) using other domains when I registered using the app but not when I tried to reset the password? Any ideas on how to approach this problem?
As an FYI, currently in Jan 2023, Microsoft 365 business blocks these emails from ever reaching the target mailbox, even if you change the SMTP settings in firebase.
They still appear in your own SMTP sent section, they just never get delivered by MS
Open firebase console goto Authentication then click on Templates > Password Reset then copy given email address (it seems like, 'noreply#YOUR-PROJECT-NAME.firebaseapp.com') then open your Gmail account and paste that email id in search section the tap on 'view message > move to not spam'
This will surly help you
Thanks
Meet Patel
If the code is the same and you don't get an error message, it is extremely likely that the email gets blocked somewhere along to the way to the target mailbox. You'd have to reach out to the system administrator and see if they can find the message somewhere in their spam filters, and ask them to modify the configuration of those to no longer block these messages.
As ganey stated, the problem is that certain email filters such as MS 365 do not accept mails that contain links that are not in pair with the sender domain.
The solution is to add a customized action url that points to the same domain as your sender domain.
Then you need to redirect from that url to the url generated by firebase.
Note:
If you do this in react or another SPA, don't forget to append the query params.
I am working on a .NET application and I have set up an external login with facebook.
Currently, when the user uses the external login functionality, signs in to Facebook and my app recieves his email address, I create a new user account and consider the email address verified. (otherwise he could not login)
Is this a good practice though? Is it possible that some attacker would change the email address midway or something? What is the best practice for letting users sign in using external login providers?
Any help would be much appriciated, thanks.
Edit: In this tutorial the guy sends a confirmation email to the email address he recieves from the external login providers. However this seems impractical to me. It kind of defeats the purpuse of simplifying the log in/sign in process, moreover I don't think I was ever asked to confirm my email when I had used external login providers to log in myself.
Is it possible that some attacker would change the email address midway or something?
No, because you are using facebook which implements openid or oauth2.
In oauth2, mail and its password are safe because you do not manage them. Those are managed by your oauth2 provider (facebook in your case)
Also according to the oauth2 flow which is the same in google, facebook, linkedin, etc the provider don't send you the email. It sends you the authorization code:
use go to your web.com
user is redirected to https://www.facebook.com/v8.0/dialog/oauth?client_id={app_id}&redirect_uri={redirect_uri}
oauth2 provider prompts a login if user was not logged in previously
user accepts the consent form (next next)
oauth2 provider (facebook in your case) at the end, perform a final redirect to your web.com (using the callback url previously registered) sending the authorization code: https://web.com?code=196da272-083c
this code is required to generate the access_token and can be used just one time(another http invocation)
the access_token is required to get the email (another http invocation)
The only way to attack could be try to send fake authorization codes to https://web.com?code=**** but in the next step (exchange auth code for a new access_token), facebook will return you an error because the attacker cannot create real authorization codes.
Confirmation email
As you said, if your web allows the user to login with some social network, add a new step with email confirmation is impractical. Is more, facebook allows the use of phone number instead of mail.
But there are some scenarios (not in the authentication) in which mail could be your ally:
Offer an option for alert the user with something like this: Hi Bob, a new account was created with your social network... If you didn't, please click on the following...
confirm an email to be used in future notifications
So I've followed the guide here https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/android/email-link-auth and am able to make an email get sent out successfully.
If I click that link on my desktop, it tries to take me to a website with the following image
Should I be writing my own server based app to authenticate this? I assumed Firebase would handle that for me. The guide doesn't mention anything about what happens at all.
It does talk about this
// URL you want to redirect back to. The domain (www.example.com) for this
// URL must be whitelisted in the Firebase Console.
.setUrl("https://www.example.com/finishSignUp?cartId=1234")
I changed it to use the domain of my firebase app/project e.g. myapp-123456.firebaseapp.com, assuming that Firebase would have something to handle this.
Am I missing a large section of documentation?
I have just today realised that the authorisation emails sent from my perfectly legitimate Firebase backend are being flagged as malicious by Microsoft Outlook's "Advanced Threat Protection"
There is no reason for this other than perhaps it was flagged during development due to me sending myself repeated confirmation emails in order to test the functionality.
This warning does not show up in regular hotmail/outlook accounts, but I am an Office 365 subscriber so it appears as though I am lucky enough to get this "advanced" protection which protects me from my own completely non-malicious website.
Should I contact Microsoft or Firebase for a solution?
Thanks a lot!
Update: I contacted Firebase support and received the following:
My name is XXXX from Firebase Support, thank you for reaching out to us, problems on Microsoft services such as this “Advanced Threat Protection” is not in my area or expertise, I would suggest to open a ticket with Microsoft for this issue, I see that there is already a topic on Stack Overflow, please be sure to check other Firebase community channels as well.
I understand that this isn't Google's problem to solve, but it would seem any Firebase app using email verification is going to run into trouble with Microsoft email systems. Which is a lot of corporate and government systems...
Any suggestions on how to get some attention paid to this from either Google or Microsoft?
Cause
This error is caused by having inconsistent domains in the email. By default, user management emails link to the default action handler, which is a web page hosted at a URL in your project's Firebase Hosting domain ([project].firebaseapp.com), rather than the the same domain you may be sending emails from (veritification#yourdomain.com).
Solution
Make this “action link” go directly to your website. This will solve the outlook warning, and also make it less likely you'll end up in spam filters in general. On your website, you have 2 options for how to handle the actual validation.
Both solutions below require your domain to be authorized.
This can be done under Authentication -> Sign-In Providers -> Authorized Domains
Option 1 - Use Custom Email Action Handlers (Hard option)
You can setup a custom email action handler so that these actions take place directly on your website, rather than on the firebase hosted page. This is a more integrated experience.
This can handle
Resetting passwords
Revoking email address changes—when users change
their accounts' primary email addresses, Firebase sends an email to
their old addresses that allow them to undo the change
Verifying email addresses
1. Create your custom email handler page
custom email action handler page - firebase docs
2. Update Email Template In Firebase
This can be done under Authentication -> Templates -> Email Address Verification -> Customize Action URL
Option 2 - Just Redirect (Easy option)
Link the email back to a page on your website, that will immediately perform a javascript redirect to the [project].firebaseapp.com authentication page, carrying through the URL parameters required to perform necessary verifications and changes.
For Example
action url for email template: https://www.yourdomain.com/account-action (firebase will attach the appropriate params to the url automatically)
Javascript redirect on your website goes to ”https://project-name.firebaseapp.com/__/auth/action?” + params
I recommend ensuring you implement the continueUrl in your verification email delivery so that the user can easily get back to your website.
If you're using Firebase hosting, and you're serving from their built-in your-project.web.app address, then you can simply use the other built-in, your-project.firebaseapp.com, as your site address instead -- no configuration needed.
The .web.app address is a bit sexier, but the various action emails are actually sent from the .firebaseapp.com, and Outlook is suspicious of the mismatch. Having users originate from the .firebaseapp.com address solves the issue.
I opened a GitHub issue about this: https://github.com/firebase/firebase-js-sdk/issues/5021][1]
I have a Chrome extension that communicates with my Meteor app through a REST API created with the Restivus package.
The user authenticates to the REST API and then uses authenticated tokens to make any further requests.
So far, everything works fine, as long as he stays within the extension. However, from the chrome extension, I'd like to redirect the user to his profile page on my main website. When that happens, he's no longer authenticated, and must re-sign-in to access the profile page.
I figure this is because the REST API session and the webpage session are two completely different sessions on the server (even though both the API and the webpage run from the same server). My question is, is there a way to maintain the user's logged-in state as he moves from the extension to the main website?
I figure there are a few options:
I'm using the standard meteor accounts package. Is there a way to push whatever standard cookie / data that the accounts package uses, to the user's browser, so that when he goes to the website, he'll be considered logged in?
Push a custom cookie to the user, which I then check for and log him in when he first comes to the website. However, I don't know how to push a cookie through a REST API or generate one in the Chrome extension
Use DDP to communicate with the second session and transfer the login credentials.
I don't know if these are the best options (or even how to implement them if they are...). Has anyone figured out a way to do this already? Thanks!
I would suggest you to develop your own flow of authentification using a token as an URL parameter. You should achieve a similar experience that slack provides with magic authentification links
The idea is to generate a token and add it to the Meteor.users collection for the user logged in your chrome extension.
Then, redirect your user to an url with the token as a parameter. The app checks which user is linked with this token and log him in.
You can get inspiration on what is done in the account package to handle enrollment and reset links, or in the passwordless package