Front-end security errors can be frustrating and potentially dangerous for your web application. They can expose sensitive data, compromise user accounts, or allow malicious attacks. In this article, you will learn how to fix some common front-end security errors and how to prevent them in the future.
XSS is a type of injection attack that occurs when an attacker inserts malicious code into a web page or a user input. The code then runs on the browser of the victim, who may see unwanted pop-ups, ads, or redirects, or have their cookies or session data stolen. To fix XSS errors, you need to sanitize and validate user input, escape output, and use Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict the sources of scripts.
I agree Utilize browser XSS filters or security features like "X-XSS-Protection" to enable built-in XSS protection features.
CSRF is a type of attack that exploits the trust between a user and a web application. It occurs when an attacker tricks a user into performing an action on a web application that they are already logged into, such as transferring money, changing passwords, or deleting data. To fix CSRF errors, you need to use anti-CSRF tokens, which are unique and random values that are attached to each request and verified by the server. You also need to use SameSite cookies, which prevent cross-site requests from sending cookies.
While XSS vulnerabilities are more serious and must be dealt with promptly, the development team must ensure that the request body User Data transfer is also CSRF protected. This can be achieved with the help of adding a short lived token in the form responsible for data capture and transfer. It is to be noted that the token must also be validated to prevent request tampering.
Insecure storage is a type of error that occurs when you store sensitive data on the client-side, such as in local storage, session storage, or cookies. These data can be easily accessed, modified, or stolen by attackers or third-party scripts. To fix insecure storage errors, you need to avoid storing sensitive data on the client-side, or encrypt them if you have to. You also need to use secure and HttpOnly cookies, which prevent access from JavaScript and cross-site requests.
Ensuring different encryption keys between all the environments such as development/staging/production goes a long way towards securing the data. Having client side data encryption is important but so is the codebase running the code.
Broken authentication is a type of error that occurs when you implement authentication mechanisms that are weak, flawed, or outdated. These mechanisms can allow attackers to bypass authentication, impersonate users, or take over sessions. To fix broken authentication errors, you need to use strong and secure passwords, implement multi-factor authentication, use HTTPS and SSL/TLS, and expire sessions after a period of inactivity or logout.
CORS errors are not security errors per se, but they are related to security policies that prevent cross-origin requests. CORS stands for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing, and it is a mechanism that allows web applications to request resources from different origins, such as fonts, images, or APIs. However, CORS also requires the server to send specific headers that indicate which origins are allowed to access the resources. If the headers are missing or incorrect, the browser will block the request and show a CORS error. To fix CORS errors, you need to configure your server to send the appropriate CORS headers, such as Access-Control-Allow-Origin, Access-Control-Allow-Methods, and Access-Control-Allow-Headers.
We can handle front-end security issues by good back-end implementation and add security headers at server level such as web.config in iis servers and it is highly recommended by security experts to lunch our web apps behind a WAF .