Apple AppAttest Checker for Node.js

app-attest-checker is a Node.js library to check Attestation and Assertion objects generated on iOS devices. It can be used in your Node.js based server to cryptographically check that requests received in your backend are from legitimate versions of your app, running on actual iOS devices.

Background:

1. See these docs on how your iOS app needs to generate a public/private key-pair and get them certified by Apple. Certification will produce an Attestation object that should be sent your server for verification. This library includes an API to parse & verify the Attestation and retrieve the public-key for the device from it. Your server should store this public-key indexed by the device-id.

2. Later when your app needs to make normal server requests, it can sign the request contents with with the private-key on the device to produce an Assertion. The Assertion should be sent along with the request to the backend (e.g. in a HTTP header). The server can verify that the request came from a a legitimate app/device using another API from this library to check the Assertion.

This library verifies Attestations and Assertions per steps provided in App Attest docs.

Related repos:

• react-native-ios-appattest: React native library that wraps iOS App Attest API's. It can be used to generate Attestations and Assertions on a device.
• hello-attestation-server-node: Example API server that uses this library and provides an API that is guarded using Client Attestation.
• RNHelloAttestationClient: Example React Native app that makes Attested requests against above server.

Consuming the library

The library is avaible on NPM.

npm install appattest-checker-node

Library usage

Verifying Attestation

Use the verifyAttestation API to check the Attestation produced by DCAppAttestService.attestKey API on the device (reference). The challenge should be the random value provided by the server to the client to generate the Attestation. keyId is the identifier of the public key generated on the device.

  const result = await verifyAttestation(
    {
      appId: '<team-id>.<bundle-id>',
      develomentEnv: false,
    },  // appInfo
    keyId,
    challenge,
    attestation
  );
  if ('verifyError' in result) {
    // Return error to app.
    // It should not use the generated keys for assertion.
  } else {
    // Save publicKey and receipt for this device (sample code).
    db.save(deviceId, result.publicKeyPem, result.receipt, 0 /* signCount */);

    // Return success to app.
    // It can use the generated keys for request assertion.
  }

Certificate verification

The Attestation includes X509 certificates (credCert and intermediateCert) and part of the verification involves checking that they were issued by Apple. The library uses a copy of Apple's App Attest Certificate (from here) for this. If you want to specify a custom Root certificate to use (e.g. because the library's copy is stale), use the following API before invoking verifyAttestation:

  setAppAttestRootCertificate(CUSTOM_ROOT_CERTIFICATE_IN_PEM_FORMAT);

Verifying Assertions

Use the verifyAssertion API to check Assertions produced by the DCAppAttestService.generateAssertion on the device (reference). The app should include Assertions for all important / high value requests (e.g. in a header). If a high value request is missing an Assertion, the server should fail the request. Also if an Assertion is present, the server should verify it as shown below or fail the request.

  const clientDataHash = // SHA-256 of request contents including challenge provided to client.

  // Check that challenge in request matches challenge issued by server
  // If there is mismatch, fail the request!

  // Lookup public key for the device (sample code).
  const record = db.load(deviceId);

  const result = await verifyAssertion(
    clientDataHash,
    record.publicKeyPem,
    '<team-id>.<bundle-id>',  // appId
    assertion
  );
  if ('verifyError' in result) {
    // Request cannot be trusted!
    // Fail request from app (e.g. return HTTP 401 equivalent)
  }

  // Check that signCount > persisted value and update.
  if (result.signCount <= record.signCount) {
    // Request cannot be trusted!
    // Fail request from app (e.g. return HTTP 401 equivalent)
  }
  db.update(deviceId, result.signCount);

  // Otherwise request can be trusted and continue processing as usual.

Ensure that clientDataHash is computed consistently in the app and server. In particular, before computing SHA256 of the request body, the body needs to be consistent in the client and server. Any syntatic differences in the request body (e.g. different ordering of fields) can produce different hashes. Use utilities like json-stable-stringify to produce consistent orderings and hashes.