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LESSON 95 OF 173 · BACKEND: USERS AND SECURITY

Too Many Tries: Rate Limits

Practice

Right now /login answers every try. A script could send thousands of passwords for one email until one works. A rate limit stops it: the shop counts the failed logins of each email, and after 3 it answers 429 Too Many Requests without even checking the password.

Counting with a Dictionary: a Dictionary<string, int> can map each key to a count, and GetValueOrDefault(key) gives 0 for a key that isn't there yet. Here one counts the likes of each product:

var LIKES = new Dictionary<int, int>();

app.MapPost("/products/{id}/like", (int id) => {
    LIKES[id] = LIKES.GetValueOrDefault(id) + 1;
    return Results.Json(new { likes = LIKES[id] });
});

Three details make the limit work. The check comes first, before the password: once the count is 3, even the right password gets 429, so a guesser can't tell a right guess from a wrong one. Emails with no account are counted too, so the answers look the same whether the account exists or not. And a right password sets the count back to 0, so three typos spread over a year don't lock anyone out.

Ana's password is secret123. Your code must give these answers, in this order:

POST /login  {"email": "ana@example.com", "password": "guess1"}     →  401  {"error": "Wrong email or password"}
POST /login  {"email": "ana@example.com", "password": "guess2"}     →  401  {"error": "Wrong email or password"}
POST /login  {"email": "ana@example.com", "password": "secret123"}  →  200  {"token": "<token>"}
POST /login  "guess3", then "guess4", then "guess5"                  →  401  each time
POST /login  {"email": "ana@example.com", "password": "secret123"}  →  429  {"error": "Too many failed logins, try again later"}
POST /login  {"email": "admin@example.com", "password": "admin-pass-123"}  →  200  {"token": "<admin>"}
GET /me  (Bearer <token>)  →  200  {"email": "ana@example.com", "id": 2, "role": "customer"}

Your task: create the Dictionary FAILED_LOGINS. In the /login route, answer {"error": "Too many failed logins, try again later"} with 429 when the email already has 3 or more failed tries. Add 1 to the email's count on every failed login, and set it back to 0 on a good one.


Assignment
Follow the Coding Tutorial to add a rate limit to the /login route: the counter, the 429 check, counting failures and the reset.


Hint
Read a count with FAILED_LOGINS.GetValueOrDefault(email): an email that never failed isn't a key yet, and FAILED_LOGINS[email] would throw. The 429 check goes right below the email line, before the user is even looked up.


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