What is Session Management?

1 min read Updated 2026-02-05

The process of securely handling user sessions, including session creation, validation, and termination. Poor session management can lead to session hijacking.

Related: Authentication JWT CSRF

Understanding Session Management

Sessions maintain user state across HTTP requests. Secure session management involves generating unpredictable session IDs, proper cookie attributes, session timeout, and invalidation on logout. Vulnerabilities can allow attackers to hijack user sessions.

Examples

  • Session cookies with Secure, HttpOnly, and SameSite attributes
  • Session timeout after inactivity
  • Session invalidation on logout
  • Regenerating session ID after login

How to Prevent

  • Generate cryptographically random session IDs
  • Set Secure, HttpOnly, and SameSite cookie attributes
  • Regenerate session ID after authentication
  • Implement absolute and idle session timeouts
  • Invalidate sessions on logout and password change

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