I want to add some type of security token when a user is editing database content. I would like to check that the user has the authorization to edit and once that is establish I would like to have that token follow the user as they move through the edit pages. My thoughts are to set a session variable and then keep referring to that session variable. But my gut is telling me that something might be wrong with that idea. I guess I could keep requesting the info form the database at each page.
Yes, that is fine. Although you need to be careful:
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header, history and proxy/server logs.Check out the OWASP Session Management Cheat Sheet for further reading.