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Clarify that GUIDs are not an authorization control - #155

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arefabdollahi:improve-BOLA
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Clarify that GUIDs are not an authorization control#155
arefabdollahi wants to merge 1 commit into
OWASP:masterfrom
arefabdollahi:improve-BOLA

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Summary

This PR clarifies that GUIDs/UUIDs improve identifier unpredictability but do not replace authorization checks.

Motivation

The current guidance correctly recommends using GUIDs/UUIDs instead of predictable identifiers.

However, developers sometimes misunderstand this recommendation and assume that using unguessable identifiers eliminates the need for authorization validation.

This PR explicitly distinguishes identifier entropy from authorization and includes a practical example demonstrating how leaked GUIDs can still lead to Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA).

Why this matters

Even when object identifiers are cryptographically strong, every request must still verify that the authenticated user is authorized to access the requested object.

This clarification reinforces an important security principle and may help prevent a common implementation mistake observed during real-world security assessments.

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