Security Headers, additional security for web applications

In today’s digital age, security is more important than ever. One way to enhance the security of your website is by implementing security headers.

Security headers are HTTP response headers that provide additional security for web applications by controlling how web browsers and other clients interact with them.

In this article, we’ll explore what security headers are, how they work, and why they’re important for website security.

What are Security Headers?

Security headers are small pieces of code that are added to HTTP response headers by web servers. They provide additional security for web applications by controlling how web browsers and other clients interact with them.

There are several different types of security headers, each with its own specific purpose. Some of the most common security headers include:

Content Security Policy (CSP)

Content Security Policy (CSP) is a security header that allows web developers to specify which sources of content are allowed to be loaded on a web page. This helps to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks by limiting the types of content that can be loaded on a page.

CSP works by allowing web developers to specify a whitelist of trusted sources for content, including scripts, stylesheets, images, and other resources. This helps to prevent malicious scripts from being injected into a web page and executed in the user’s browser.

X-XSS-Protection

The X-XSS-Protection header is designed to protect against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks by enabling a built-in protection mechanism in web browsers. When this header is enabled, the browser will automatically detect and block certain types of XSS attacks.

This header can be configured to either block or sanitize potentially dangerous content, depending on the needs of the website.

X-Frame-Options

The X-Frame-Options header is designed to protect against clickjacking attacks by preventing a web page from being displayed inside a frame or iframe. This header tells web browsers whether or not a page can be displayed inside a frame, and if so, which frames are allowed to display it.

This header can be configured to either allow the page to be displayed in a specific set of frames, or to prevent the page from being displayed in any frames at all.

X-Content-Type-Options

The X-Content-Type-Options header is designed to protect against MIME-sniffing attacks by preventing web browsers from guessing the MIME type of a resource. This header tells web browsers to always use the MIME type specified in the HTTP response, rather than trying to guess the type based on the content of the resource.

This helps to prevent attacks where a malicious script is disguised as a harmless file type, such as an image or a video.

Why are Security Headers Important?

Security headers are important for website security for several reasons. First, they help to prevent a wide range of attacks, including cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking, and MIME-sniffing attacks.

By controlling how web browsers and other clients interact with a web application, security headers help to prevent malicious scripts from being injected into a web page and executed in the user’s browser.

Second, security headers can help to enhance the privacy of users by preventing sensitive information from being leaked. For example, the Strict-Transport-Security (STS) header can help to prevent man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks by ensuring that all traffic is encrypted over HTTPS.

Third, security headers can help to improve the performance of a website by reducing the amount of unnecessary traffic and resource consumption. For example, the Content-Security-Policy (CSP) header can help to reduce the number of unnecessary requests by specifying a whitelist of trusted sources for content.

How to Implement Security Headers?

Implementing security headers on a website can be a complex process, but it’s an important step in enhancing the security of your website.

.htaccess code:

[php]
# SART HttpHeaders

Header always set X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff"
<FilesMatch "\.(php|html)$">
Header set X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN"
Header set X-XSS-Protection "1"
Header set X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies "by-content-type"
Header set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload" env=HTTPS
Header set Referrer-Policy "same-origin"
Header set Feature-Policy "sync-xhr ‘self’"
Header set Content-Security-Policy: upgrade-insecure-requests;

Header always set Permissions-Policy "geolocation=(), midi=(),sync-xhr=(),accelerometer=(), gyroscope=(), magnetometer=(), camera=(), fullscreen=(self)"

Header set Expect-CT enforce,max-age=2592000,report-uri="https://webdesignssl.com/contact-us/"

# FINAL HttpHeaders
[/php]

Expect-CT

The HTTP Expect-CT header is a mechanism that allows a site to opt-in for enforcing and reporting on Certificate Transparency requirements. This helps to prevent the use of mis-issued certificates for that site.

Feature-Policy

The HTTP Feature-Policy is response-type headers. Most of our web browser are empowered nowadays to use some features and API’s to provide additional experiences for web users.

Feature-Policy is an HTTP header that can allow website owners to toggle on or off certain of those web browser features and API.

This effect is caused to both the host website and on the pages which are embedded in it. To use this HTTP header, we can edit the .htaccess file or server config file.

It is an important point to note that, this header is not concerned with a website’s security but with delivering a good and smooth experience for website users.

Referrer-Policy

The HTTP Referrer-Policy header contains instructions on how much information and what details are sent with the HTTP Referer header.