Session tokens that do not expire on the HTTP server can allow an attacker unlimited time to guess or brute force a valid authenticated session token. An example is the "Remember Me" option on many retail websites. If a user's cookie file is captured or brute-forced, then an attacker can use these static-session tokens to gain access to that user's web accounts. Additionally, session tokens can be potentially logged and cached in proxy servers that, if broken into by an attacker, may contain similar sorts of information in logs that can be exploited if the particular session has not been expired on the HTTP server.
To prevent Session Hijacking and Brute Force attacks from occurring to an active session, the HTTP server can seamlessly expire and regenerate tokens to give an attacker a smaller window of time for replay exploitation of each legitimate token. Token expiration can be performed based on number of requests or time.
Many websites have prohibitions against unrestrained password guessing (e.g., it can temporarily lock the account or stop listening to the IP address). With regard to session token brute-force attacks, an attacker can probably try hundreds or thousands of session tokens embedded in a legitimate URL or cookie for example without a single complaint from the HTTP server. Many intrusion-detection systems do not actively look for this type of attack; penetration tests also often overlook this weakness in web e-commerce systems. Designers can use "booby trapped" session tokens that never actually get assigned but will detect if an attacker is trying to brute force a range of tokens. Resulting actions can either ban originating IP address (all behind proxy will be affected) or lock out the account (potential DoS). Anomaly/misuse detection hooks can also be built in to detect if an authenticated user tries to manipulate their token to gain elevated privileges.
Critical user actions such as money transfer or significant purchase decisions should require the user to re-authenticate or be reissued another session token immediately prior to significant actions. Developers can also somewhat segment data and user actions to the extent where re-authentication is required upon crossing certain "boundaries" to prevent some types of cross-site scripting attacks that exploit user accounts.
If a session token is captured in transit through network interception, a web application account is then trivially prone to a replay or hijacking attack. Typical web encryption technologies include but are not limited to Secure Sockets Layer (SSLv2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols in order to safeguard the state mechanism token.
With the popularity of Internet Kiosks and shared computing environments on the rise, session tokens take on a new risk. A browser only destroys session cookies when the browser thread is torn down. Most Internet kiosks maintain the same browser thread. It is therefore a good idea to overwrite session cookies when the user logs out of the application.
Page specific tokens or "nonces" may be used in conjunction with session specific tokens to provide a measure of authenticity when dealing with client requests. Used in conjunction with transport layer security mechanisms, page tokens can aide in ensuring that the client on the other end of the session is indeed the same client which requested the last page in a given session. Page tokens are often stored in cookies or query strings and should be completely random. It is possible to avoid sending session token information to the client entirely through the use of page tokens, by creating a mapping between them on the server side, this technique should further increase the difficulty in brute forcing session authentication tokens.