What are Security Headers?
Security headers are HTTP response headers that enhance the security of web applications by helping to mitigate common vulnerabilities. These headers provide additional information to the browser regarding how it should handle the content of a web application. They play a crucial role in protecting against attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking, and data injection.
Common Types of Security Headers
- Content Security Policy (CSP): Controls which resources the user agent is allowed to load.
- X-Content-Type-Options: Prevents browsers from MIME-sniffing a response away from the declared content-type.
- X-Frame-Options: Protects against clickjacking by controlling whether the browser can render the page in a frame.
- Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS): Forces the browser to only access the site over HTTPS, preventing man-in-the-middle attacks.
- Referrer-Policy: Governs the information that is passed when navigating between pages.
Implementing these security headers can greatly reduce potential attack vectors, making web applications harder for malicious actors to exploit. It's crucial for developers to understand and apply these headers to protect sensitive data and improve overall security posture of their applications.