This site is the archived OWASP Foundation Wiki and is no longer accepting Account Requests.
To view the new OWASP Foundation website, please visit https://owasp.org

Difference between revisions of "OWASP Secure Headers Project"

From OWASP
Jump to: navigation, search
(Headers)
(Browser Support)
Line 459: Line 459:
 
|-
 
|-
 
! X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies
 
! X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies
 +
|  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||
 +
|-
 +
! Referrer-Policy
 
|  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||  
 
|  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||  ||  
 
|}
 
|}

Revision as of 15:48, 26 March 2017

Incubator banner.jpg

OWASP Secure Headers Project

OWASP Secure Headers Project involves setting headers from the server is easy and often doesn't require any code changes. Once set, they can restrict modern browsers from running into easily preventable vulnerabilities. OWASP Secure Headers Project intends to raise awareness and use of these headers.

Introduction

HTTP headers are well known and also despised. Seeking the balance between usability and security developers implement functionality through the headers that can make your more versatile or secure application. But in practice how the headers are being implemented? What sites follow the best implementation practices? Big companies, small, all or none?

Description

We aim to publish reports on header usage stats, developments and changes. Code libraries that make these headers easily accessible to developers on a range of platforms. Data sets concerning the general usage of these headers.

Licensing

OWASP Secure Headers is free to use. It is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.


Project Leader

Ricardo Iramar

Project Contributors

Jim Manico
Alexandre Menezes

Related Projects

Quick Links

News and Events

Classifications

New projects.png Owasp-builders-small.png
Owasp-defenders-small.png
Cc-button-y-sa-small.png
Project Type Files CODE.jpg

The following contains a list of HTTP response headers related to security.

Response Headers

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is a web security policy mechanism which helps to protect websites against protocol downgrade attacks and cookie hijacking. It allows web servers to declare that web browsers (or other complying user agents) should only interact with it using secure HTTPS connections, and never via the insecure HTTP protocol. HSTS is an IETF standards track protocol and is specified in RFC 6797. A server implements an HSTS policy by supplying a header (Strict-Transport-Security) over an HTTPS connection (HSTS headers over HTTP are ignored).

Values

Value Description
max-age=SECONDS The time, in seconds, that the browser should remember that this site is only to be accessed using HTTPS.
includeSubDomains If this optional parameter is specified, this rule applies to all of the site's subdomains as well.

Example

Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000 ; includeSubDomains

References

Public Key Pinning Extension for HTTP (HPKP)

HTTP Public Key Pinning (HPKP) is a security mechanism which allows HTTPS websites to resist impersonation by attackers using mis-issued or otherwise fraudulent certificates. (For example, sometimes attackers can compromise certificate authorities, and then can mis-issue certificates for a web origin.).

The HTTPS web server serves a list of public key hashes, and on subsequent connections clients expect that server to use one or more of those public keys in its certificate chain. Deploying HPKP safely will require operational and organizational maturity due to the risk that hosts may make themselves unavailable by pinning to a set of public key hashes that becomes invalid. With care, host operators can greatly reduce the risk of man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks and other false authentication problems for their users without incurring undue risk.

Values

Value Description
pin-sha256="<sha256>" The quoted string is the Base64 encoded Subject Public Key Information (SPKI) fingerprint. It is possible to specify multiple pins for different public keys. Some browsers might allow other hashing algorithms than SHA-256 in the future.
max-age=SECONDS The time, in seconds, that the browser should remember that this site is only to be accessed using one of the pinned keys.
includeSubDomains If this optional parameter is specified, this rule applies to all of the site's subdomains as well.
report-uri="<URL>" If this optional parameter is specified, pin validation failures are reported to the given URL.

Example

Public-Key-Pins: pin-sha256="d6qzRu9zOECb90Uez27xWltNsj0e1Md7GkYYkVoZWmM="; pin-sha256="E9CZ9INDbd+2eRQozYqqbQ2yXLVKB9+xcprMF+44U1g="; report-uri="http://example.com/pkp-report"; max-age=10000; includeSubDomains

References

X-Frame-Options

X-Frame-Options response header improve the protection of web applications against Clickjacking. It declares a policy communicated from a host to the client browser on whether the browser must not display the transmitted content in frames of other web pages.

Values

Value Description
deny No rendering within a frame.
sameorigin No rendering if origin mismatch.
allow-from: DOMAIN Allows rendering if framed by frame loaded from DOMAIN.

Example

X-Frame-Options: deny

References

X-XSS-Protection

This header enables the Cross-site scripting (XSS) filter in your browser.

Values

Value Description
0 Filter disabled.
1 Filter enabled. If a cross-site scripting attack is detected, in order to stop the attack, the browser will sanitize the page.
1; mode=block Filter enabled. Rather than sanitize the page, when a XSS attack is detected, the browser will prevent rendering of the page.
1; report=http://[YOURDOMAIN]/your_report_URI Filter enabled. The browser will sanitize the page and report the violation. This is a Chromium function utilizing CSP violation reports to send details to a URI of your choice.

Example

X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block

References

X-Content-Type-Options

Setting this header will prevent the browser from interpreting files as something else than declared by the content type in the HTTP headers.

Values

Value Description
nosniff Will prevent the browser from MIME-sniffing a response away from the declared content-type.

Example

X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff

References

Content-Security-Policy

Content Security Policy (CSP) requires careful tuning and precise definition of the policy. If enabled, CSP has significant impact on the way browser renders pages (e.g., inline JavaScript disabled by default and must be explicitly allowed in policy). CSP prevents a wide range of attacks, including Cross-site scripting and other cross-site injections.

Values

Directive Description
base-uri Define the base uri for relative uri.
default-src Define loading policy for all resources type in case of a resource type dedicated directive is not defined (fallback).
script-src Define which scripts the protected resource can execute.
object-src Define from where the protected resource can load plugins.
style-src Define which styles (CSS) the user applies to the protected resource.
img-src Define from where the protected resource can load images.
media-src Define from where the protected resource can load video and audio.
frame-src Deprecated and replaced by child-src. Define from where the protected resource can embed frames.
child-src Define from where the protected resource can embed frames.
frame-ancestors Define from where the protected resource can be embedded in frames.
font-src Define from where the protected resource can load fonts.
connect-src Define which URIs the protected resource can load using script interfaces.
manifest-src Define from where the protected resource can load manifest.
form-action Define which URIs can be used as the action of HTML form elements.
sandbox Specifies an HTML sandbox policy that the user agent applies to the protected resource.
script-nonce Define script execution by requiring the presence of the specified nonce on script elements.
plugin-types Define the set of plugins that can be invoked by the protected resource by limiting the types of resources that can be embedded.
reflected-xss Instructs a user agent to activate or deactivate any heuristics used to filter or block reflected cross-site scripting attacks, equivalent to the effects of the non-standard X-XSS-Protection header.
block-all-mixed-content Prevent user agent from loading mixed content.
upgrade-insecure-requests Instructs user agent to download insecure resources using HTTPS.
referrer Define information user agent must send in Referer header.
report-uri Specifies a URI to which the user agent sends reports about policy violation.
report-to Specifies a group (defined in Report-To header) to which the user agent sends reports about policy violation.

Example

Content-Security-Policy: script-src 'self'

References

X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies

A cross-domain policy file is an XML document that grants a web client, such as Adobe Flash Player or Adobe Acrobat (though not necessarily limited to these), permission to handle data across domains. When clients request content hosted on a particular source domain and that content make requests directed towards a domain other than its own, the remote domain needs to host a cross-domain policy file that grants access to the source domain, allowing the client to continue the transaction. Normally a meta-policy is declared in the master policy file, but for those who can’t write to the root directory, they can also declare a meta-policy using the X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies HTTP response header.

Values

Value Description
none No policy files are allowed anywhere on the target server, including this master policy file.
master-only Only this master policy file is allowed.
by-content-type [HTTP/HTTPS only] Only policy files served with Content-Type: text/x-cross-domain-policy are allowed.
by-ftp-filename [FTP only] Only policy files whose file names are crossdomain.xml (i.e. URLs ending in /crossdomain.xml) are allowed.
all All policy files on this target domain are allowed.

Example

X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies: none

References

Referrer-Policy

The Referrer-Policy HTTP header governs which referrer information, sent in the Referer header, should be included with requests made.

Values

Value Description
no-referrer The Referer header will be omitted entirely. No referrer information is sent along with requests.
no-referrer-when-downgrade This is the user agent's default behavior if no policy is specified. The origin is sent as referrer to a-priori as-much-secure destination (HTTPS->HTTPS), but isn't sent to a less secure destination (HTTPS->HTTP).
origin Only send the origin of the document as the referrer in all cases. The document https://example.com/page.html will send the referrer https://example.com/.
origin-when-cross-origin Send a full URL when performing a same-origin request, but only send the origin of the document for other cases.
same-origin A referrer will be sent for same-site origins, but cross-origin requests will contain no referrer information.
strict-origin Only send the origin of the document as the referrer to a-priori as-much-secure destination (HTTPS->HTTPS), but don't send it to a less secure destination (HTTPS->HTTP).
strict-origin-when-cross-origin Send a full URL when performing a same-origin request, only send the origin of the document to a-priori as-much-secure destination (HTTPS->HTTPS), and send no header to a less secure destination (HTTPS->HTTP).
unsafe-url Send a full URL (stripped from parameters) when performing a a same-origin or cross-origin request.

Example

Referrer-Policy: no-referrer

References

Browser Support

Internet Explorer Edge Firefox Chrome Safari Opera Android
HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) 11 13 47 49 9.1 39 4.4
Public Key Pinning Extension for HTTP (HPKP) NS NS 47 49 NS 39 51
X-Frame-Options 8 13 47 49 9.1 39 4.4
X-XSS-Protection 8 NS
X-Content-Type-Options 8 51 1.0 NS 13
Content-Security-Policy 11 13 47 49 9.1 39 4.4
X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies
Referrer-Policy

NS = Not Supported

References

Some stats from Alexa 1K top websites in the last year to check the secure headers adherence. "NULL" means the websites not using the secure header.

2015-07-26 2016-07-31
2015-07-26 content-security-policy.png 2016-07-31 content-security-policy.png
2015-07-26 content-security-policy-report-only.png 2016-07-31 content-security-policy-report-only.png
2015-07-26 public-key-pins.png 2016-07-31 public-key-pins.png
NA 2016-07-31 public-key-pins-report-only.png
2015-07-26 strict-transport-security.png 2016-07-31 strict-transport-security.png
2015-07-26 x-content-type-options.png 2016-07-31 x-content-type-options.png
2015-07-26 x-frame-options.png 2016-07-31 x-frame-options.png
2015-07-26 x-xss-protection.png 2016-07-31 x-xss-protection.png

This section cover a list of tools to analyze, develop and administrate HTTP secure headers in order to help achieve more secure and trustworthy web systems.

Analysis Tools Reference

hsecscan

A security scanner for HTTP response headers.

headers

Python script to get some response headers from Alexa top sites file and store in a MySQL database.

securityheaders.io

There are services out there that will analyse the HTTP response headers of other sites but I also wanted to add a rating system to the results. The HTTP response headers that this site analyses provide huge levels of protection and it's important that sites deploy them. Hopefully, by providing an easy mechanism to assess them, and further information on how to deploy missing headers, we can drive up the usage of security based headers across the web.

Mozilla Observatory

A Mozilla project designed to help developers, system administrators, and security professionals configure their sites safely and securely.

High-Tech Bridge Web Security Scanner

An online service that will retrieve and analyse headers syntax and proper configuration in a comprehensive way. It will be able for instance to highlight Public-Key-Pins that matches one certificate of the chain or if Content-Security-Policy contains values that could be unsafe or too permissive.

Check Your Headers

Just another web scanner for HTTP response headers.

Recx Security Analyser

Chrome extension that allows the inspection of security aspects of a site's HTTP headers, cookies and other key security settings.

KickOff

While each project you launch may have a different feature set, they often share many of the same performance, SEO and security requirements. This tool aims to automate the process of checking your list of requirements shortly before launch or directly after a deployment.

Development Libraries Language Reference

secureheaders

Security related headers all in one gem.

  • Ruby

Security Header Injection Module (SHIM)

SHIM is a HTTP module that provides protection for many vulnerabilities by injecting security-specific HTTP headers into ASP.NET web applications.

  • ASP.NET

Spring Security

Spring Security’s support for adding various security headers to the response.

  • Java

rack-secure_headers

Security related HTTP headers for Rack applications.

  • Rack

helmet and hood

Node.js (express).

  • Node.js (express)

blankie

A CSP plugin for hapi.

  • Node.js (hapi)

NWebsec

NWebsec consists of several security libraries for ASP.NET applications.

  • ASP.NET

django-csp + commonware; django-security

django-csp + commonware; django-security.

  • Python

secureheader

Package secureheader adds some HTTP header fields widely considered to improve safety of HTTP requests.

  • Go

secure_headers

This Plug will automatically apply several security headers to the Plug.Conn response. By design SecureHeaders will attempt to apply the most strict security policy. Although, security headers are configurable and are validated to avoid misconfiguration.

  • Elixir

dropwizard-web-security

A bundle for applying default web security functionality to a dropwizard application.

  • Dropwizard

ember-cli-content-security-policy

This addon makes it easy to use Content Security Policy (CSP) in your project. It can be deployed either via a Content-Security-Policy header sent from the Ember CLI Express server, or as a meta tag in the index.html file.

  • Ember.js

Operation Tools Web Servers Supported Reference

http_hardening

Puppet module to enable, configure and manage secure http headers on web servers.

  • Apache HTTP Server
  • NGINX
  • Lighttpd

HTTP response headers from the top websites in the world. Command used to extract the headers:

curl -L -A "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36" -s -D - https://www.example.com -o /dev/null

Google

$ curl -L -A "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36" -s -D - https://www.google.com -o /dev/null
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Location: https://www.google.com.br/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=pNhBV6yTAvSp8wf3lInoCg
Content-Length: 263
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 16:04:52 GMT
Alternate-Protocol: 443:quic
Alt-Svc: quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="34,33,32,31,30,29,28,27,26,25"

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 16:04:52 GMT
Expires: -1
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
P3P: CP="This is not a P3P policy! See https://www.google.com/support/accounts/answer/151657?hl=en for more info."
Server: gws
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
Set-Cookie: NID=79=BdHGSU63HWlvH35tKMhNOYIN8VCnB0huHol7Yl-29r0jEE2HY1n6Nts9BJH_JZ-Cps57guAUTLSyTO6caM9WzOPJYDfsRt8qMZ4tt4rGdfN0pURn1j-xRW-zxwx9-mkb; expires=Mon, 21-Nov-2016 16:04:52 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com.br; HttpOnly
Alternate-Protocol: 443:quic
Alt-Svc: quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="34,33,32,31,30,29,28,27,26,25"
Accept-Ranges: none
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

Facebook

$ curl -L -A "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36" -s -D - https://www.facebook.com -o /dev/null
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=15552000; preload
Expires: Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: private, no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate
content-security-policy: default-src * data: blob:;script-src *.facebook.com *.fbcdn.net *.facebook.net *.google-analytics.com *.virtualearth.net *.google.com 127.0.0.1:* *.spotilocal.com:* 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net fbcdn-static-b-a.akamaihd.net *.atlassolutions.com blob: chrome-extension://lifbcibllhkdhoafpjfnlhfpfgnpldfl;style-src * 'unsafe-inline' data:;connect-src *.facebook.com *.fbcdn.net *.facebook.net *.spotilocal.com:* *.akamaihd.net wss://*.facebook.com:* https://fb.scanandcleanlocal.com:* *.atlassolutions.com attachment.fbsbx.com ws://localhost:* blob: 127.0.0.1:*;
Pragma: no-cache
public-key-pins-report-only: max-age=500; pin-sha256="WoiWRyIOVNa9ihaBciRSC7XHjliYS9VwUGOIud4PB18="; pin-sha256="r/mIkG3eEpVdm+u/ko/cwxzOMo1bk4TyHIlByibiA5E="; pin-sha256="q4PO2G2cbkZhZ82+JgmRUyGMoAeozA+BSXVXQWB8XWQ="; report-uri="http://reports.fb.com/hpkp/"
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-XSS-Protection: 0
X-Frame-Options: DENY
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Type: text/html
X-FB-Debug: 7zpjoR0dVod3whuapaNzLVQnAg077KxpFx7VJO2nLT0AX3jD3IquGAFK+o5E1UARnZhloBpGmOaMns7AE7lllA==
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 16:05:38 GMT
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive

Twitter

$ curl -L -A "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36" -s -D - https://www.twitter.com -o /dev/null
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
content-length: 0
date: Sun, 22 May 2016 16:06:04 GMT
location: https://twitter.com/
server: tsa_d
set-cookie: guest_id=v1%3A146393316440053116; Domain=.twitter.com; Path=/; Expires=Tue, 22-May-2018 16:06:04 UTC
strict-transport-security: max-age=631138519
x-connection-hash: fcf0a8e18ecc1a28f22e30285de55fe0
x-response-time: 121

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
cache-control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0
content-length: 255393
content-security-policy: script-src https://connect.facebook.net https://cm.g.doubleclick.net https://ssl.google-analytics.com https://graph.facebook.com https://twitter.com 'unsafe-eval' https://*.twimg.com https://api.twitter.com https://analytics.twitter.com https://publish.twitter.com https://ton.twitter.com https://syndication.twitter.com 'nonce-grHpCTpdmetRD4mMTtwgmA==' https://www.google.com https://t.tellapart.com https://platform.twitter.com https://www.google-analytics.com 'self'; frame-ancestors 'self'; font-src https://twitter.com https://*.twimg.com data: https://ton.twitter.com https://fonts.gstatic.com https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com https://netdna.bootstrapcdn.com 'self'; media-src https://twitter.com https://*.twimg.com https://ton.twitter.com blob: 'self'; connect-src https://graph.facebook.com https://*.giphy.com https://*.twimg.com https://pay.twitter.com https://analytics.twitter.com https://media.riffsy.com https://upload.twitter.com https://api.mapbox.com 'self'; style-src https://fonts.googleapis.com https://twitter.com https://*.twimg.com https://translate.googleapis.com https://ton.twitter.com 'unsafe-inline' https://platform.twitter.com https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com https://netdna.bootstrapcdn.com 'self'; object-src https://twitter.com https://pbs.twimg.com; default-src 'self'; frame-src https://staticxx.facebook.com https://twitter.com https://*.twimg.com https://player.vimeo.com https://pay.twitter.com https://www.facebook.com https://ton.twitter.com https://syndication.twitter.com https://vine.co twitter: https://www.youtube.com https://platform.twitter.com https://upload.twitter.com https://s-static.ak.facebook.com 'self' https://donate.twitter.com; img-src https://graph.facebook.com https://*.giphy.com https://twitter.com https://*.twimg.com data: https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net https://www.facebook.com https://ton.twitter.com https://*.fbcdn.net https://syndication.twitter.com https://media.riffsy.com https://www.google.com https://stats.g.doubleclick.net https://*.tiles.mapbox.com https://www.google-analytics.com blob: 'self'; report-uri https://twitter.com/i/csp_report?a=NVQWGYLXFVZXO2LGOQ%3D%3D%3D%3D%3D%3D&ro=false;
content-type: text/html;charset=utf-8
date: Sun, 22 May 2016 16:06:05 GMT
expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT
last-modified: Sun, 22 May 2016 16:06:04 GMT
pragma: no-cache
server: tsa_d
set-cookie: fm=0; Expires=Sun, 22 May 2016 16:05:54 GMT; Path=/; Domain=.twitter.com; Secure; HTTPOnly
set-cookie: _twitter_sess=BAh7CSIKZmxhc2hJQzonQWN0aW9uQ29udHJvbGxlcjo6Rmxhc2g6OkZsYXNo%250ASGFzaHsABjoKQHVzZWR7ADoPY3JlYXRlZF9hdGwrCKtcN9lUAToMY3NyZl9p%250AZCIlOGVhNjNkOTRjZWQ4ZDg4YzQ0MTFiMzc5MzM3MjRjMTI6B2lkIiVmYTRl%250AZmZjMGM1MzNkN2Y0YWUyODAwZTcwOGI2NmRmYg%253D%253D--7ff51585db5754a6c35882f921ea30fa98ef7d9f; Path=/; Domain=.twitter.com; Secure; HTTPOnly
set-cookie: guest_id=v1%3A146393316461963429; Domain=.twitter.com; Path=/; Expires=Tue, 22-May-2018 16:06:04 UTC
status: 200 OK
strict-transport-security: max-age=631138519
x-connection-hash: 8f6fcd1089ed5b7edb3f837fb0a42d28
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
x-response-time: 495
x-transaction: cbe2aac34e0865e5
x-twitter-response-tags: BouncerCompliant
x-ua-compatible: IE=edge,chrome=1
x-xss-protection: 1; mode=block

Github

$ curl -L -A "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36" -s -D - https://www.github.com -o /dev/null
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-length: 0
Location: https://github.com/
Connection: close

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: GitHub.com
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 16:06:43 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Status: 200 OK
Cache-Control: no-cache
Vary: X-PJAX
X-UA-Compatible: IE=Edge,chrome=1
Set-Cookie: logged_in=no; domain=.github.com; path=/; expires=Thu, 22 May 2036 16:06:43 -0000; secure; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: _gh_sess=eyJzZXNzaW9uX2lkIjoiMThjNGQxMDg2ZGIzMTMzNzliZmE5Zjk2NmM2Y2NjNDUiLCJfY3NyZl90b2tlbiI6Ill1aWJraDVFZDZhUFBzNTU0MnJyTWh1Qkk5UC9tRGN0eFZaWlMvYXd1aHM9In0%3D--088e76dc9d04769096885e47245d5257cccdd05d; path=/; secure; HttpOnly
X-Request-Id: 4a657bc2248311cfded00c09766a48f1
X-Runtime: 0.010857
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; block-all-mixed-content; child-src render.githubusercontent.com; connect-src 'self' uploads.github.com status.github.com api.github.com www.google-analytics.com github-cloud.s3.amazonaws.com wss://live.github.com; font-src assets-cdn.github.com; form-action 'self' github.com gist.github.com; frame-ancestors 'none'; frame-src render.githubusercontent.com; img-src 'self' data: assets-cdn.github.com identicons.github.com www.google-analytics.com collector.githubapp.com *.gravatar.com *.wp.com *.githubusercontent.com; media-src 'none'; object-src assets-cdn.github.com; plugin-types application/x-shockwave-flash; script-src assets-cdn.github.com; style-src 'unsafe-inline' assets-cdn.github.com
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
Public-Key-Pins: max-age=5184000; pin-sha256="WoiWRyIOVNa9ihaBciRSC7XHjliYS9VwUGOIud4PB18="; pin-sha256="RRM1dGqnDFsCJXBTHky16vi1obOlCgFFn/yOhI/y+ho="; pin-sha256="k2v657xBsOVe1PQRwOsHsw3bsGT2VzIqz5K+59sNQws="; pin-sha256="K87oWBWM9UZfyddvDfoxL+8lpNyoUB2ptGtn0fv6G2Q="; pin-sha256="IQBnNBEiFuhj+8x6X8XLgh01V9Ic5/V3IRQLNFFc7v4="; pin-sha256="iie1VXtL7HzAMF+/PVPR9xzT80kQxdZeJ+zduCB3uj0="; pin-sha256="LvRiGEjRqfzurezaWuj8Wie2gyHMrW5Q06LspMnox7A="; includeSubDomains
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: deny
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Served-By: d41662224d8c44f09604b862e979767a
X-GitHub-Request-Id: B36F2320:987D:E88A2AC:5741D913

Please note the best practices below suggest methods to change webserver configuration to add headers. Security headers can also be successfully added to your application at the software level as well in almost every web language. Many web frameworks add some of these headers automatically.

Response Headers

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)

  • Apache
Edit your apache configuration file and add the following to your VirtualHost.
Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains"
  • nginx
Edit your nginx configuration file and add the following snippet.
add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains";
  • lighttpd
Edit your lighttpd configuration file and add the following snippet.
setenv.add-response-header = ("Strict-Transport-Security" => "max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains",)
  • IIS
Visit https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#strict-transport-security

Public Key Pinning Extension for HTTP (HPKP)

  • Apache
Edit your apache configuration file and add the following to your VirtualHost.
Header set Public-Key-Pins "pin-sha256=\"klO23nT2ehFDXCfx3eHTDRESMz3asj1muO+4aIdjiuY=\"; pin-sha256=\"633lt352PKRXbOwf4xSEa1M517scpD3l5f79xMD9r9Q=\"; max-age=2592000; includeSubDomains"
  • nginx
Edit your nginx configuration file and add the following snippet.
add_header Public-Key-Pins "pin-sha256=\"klO23nT2ehFDXCfx3eHTDRESMz3asj1muO+4aIdjiuY=\"; pin-sha256=\"633lt352PKRXbOwf4xSEa1M517scpD3l5f79xMD9r9Q=\"; max-age=2592000; includeSubDomains";
  • lighttpd
Edit your lighttpd configuration file and add the following snippet.
setenv.add-response-header = ("Public-Key-Pins" => "pin-sha256=\"klO23nT2ehFDXCfx3eHTDRESMz3asj1muO+4aIdjiuY=\"; pin-sha256=\"633lt352PKRXbOwf4xSEa1M517scpD3l5f79xMD9r9Q=\"; max-age=2592000; includeSubDomains",)
  • IIS
Visit https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#public-key-pinning

X-Frame-Options

  • Apache
Add this line below into your site's configuration to configure Apache to send X-Frame-Options header for all pages.
Header set X-Frame-Options DENY
  • nginx
Add snippet below into configuration file to send X-Frame-Options header.
add_header X-Frame-Options "DENY";
  • lighttpd
Add snippet below into configuration file to send X-Frame-Options header.
setenv.add-response-header = ("X-Frame-Options" => "DENY",)
  • IIS
Visit https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#x-frame-options

X-XSS-Protection

Add appropriate snippet into configuration file.

  • Apache
Header set X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
  • nginx
add_header X-XSS-Protection "1;mode=block";
  • lighttpd
setenv.add-response-header = ("X-XSS-Protection" => "1; mode=block",)
  • IIS
Visit https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#x-xss-protection

X-Content-Type-Options

Add appropriate snippet into configuration file.

  • Apache
Header set X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
  • nginx
add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";
  • lighttpd
setenv.add-response-header = ("X-Content-Type-Options" => "nosniff",)
  • IIS
Visit https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#x-content-type-options

Content-Security-Policy

Add appropriate snippet into configuration file.

  • Apache
Header set Content-Security-Policy: script-src 'self'
  • nginx
add_header Content-Security-Policy "script-src 'self'";
  • lighttpd
setenv.add-response-header = ("Content-Security-Policy" => "script-src 'self'",)
  • IIS
Visit https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#content-security-policy

X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies

Add appropriate snippet into configuration file.

  • Apache
Header set X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies: none
  • nginx
add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies "none";
  • lighttpd
setenv.add-response-header = ("X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies" => "none",)
  • IIS
[update needed]
What is HTTP header?
HTTP header fields are part of HTTP message defined in RFC 2616 that consists of requests from client to server and responses from server to client that define parameters for the communication process including: language, compression support, security and a lot of resources.
Is there a standard for HTTP headers?
A core set of fields is standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in RFCs 7230, 7231, 7232, 7233, 7234, and 7235. The permanent registry of header fields and repository of provisional registrations are maintained by the IANA. Additional field names and permissible values may be defined by each application. Non-standard header fields were conventionally marked by prefixing the field name with X- but this convention was deprecated in June 2012 because of the inconveniences it caused when non-standard fields became standard. An earlier restriction on use of Downgraded- was lifted in March 2013.
Why I need worry about that?
Like other initiatives supported by OWASP, this project have the objetive to help all community to conceive, develop, acquire, operate and maintain applications that can be trusted as provide useful information about the use relative of secure http headers by applications and platforms supported.
Where can apply secure features presented by this project?
The effectiveness provides by secure http headers demands that application or some component of infrastructure indicate proper header and correspondent value as like use of some client that implement that feature.
When I consider apply this improvements?
The short response it's right now. However we believe in approach more responsible. So we recommend conducting a planning and preliminary study, as well the incremental inclusion of insurance headers.
Headers like: Public Key Pinning Extension for HTTP (HPKP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) and Content Security Policy (CSP) need a special attention in order not to cause any incident. Some real cases about to use of secure headers can be seen:
- Secure websites shun HTTP Public Key Pinning
- HTTP Public Key Pinning: You’re doing it wrong!
- CSP On Reporting and Filtering
- Content Security Policy (CSP)
Who can be responsible to apply secure features?
The responsability to provides more secure environment it's a effort that envolve developers, system administrators, vendors of web browsers and end user.
Like this the success of secure headers strategy depends of proper client, in general a web browser, and web application or some infrastructure component configured appropriately.
How can I apply secure http headers?
The use of secure headers can occur directly through of handling http response headers or using some framework, in addition to conducting appropriate configuration in web server.
The OWASP: Secure Headers project provides a list of resources and examples to help understand, analyze and configure secure headers.
What's the costs relative to apply this actions?
There's no costs in to use secure headers. However some effort to configure and manage properly configuration will be necessary.

Contributors

OWASP Secure Headers Project is developed by a worldwide team of volunteers. The primary contributors to date have been:

Involvement in the development and promotion of OWASP Secure Headers Project is actively encouraged! You do not have to be a security expert in order to contribute. If you want to help send an email to [email protected].

To Do

  • Perform public to scan websites and view stats regarding these headers. Automated scanning of the top 1m sites on the web; filtering of said sites to view stats across industries and countries; published database dumps for public consumption/tools; scanning of individual sites; comparing multiple scanned sites.
  • Consistent reports regarding this secure headers, their usage, any changes to existing headers.
  • Reorganize "Best Practices" tab and include a section for related security best practices around headers (e.g. "Remove Server Header" and "Remove X-Powered-By Header".
  • Include X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies on Stats tab.
  • Create a parser to grab the headers from https://scans.io and populate the MySQL database.

Doing

  • Producing open source, easily implemented, well documented code libraries that enable these headers for a variety of platforms. We'll prioritize creating and publicizing Node.JS, PHP, Ruby, and Java, but will eventually reach out towards edge cases like Go, Python and others. The key is to make this accessible as possible to developers.
  • Including how to set properly secure headers on IIS.
  • Improve constantly hsecscan tool to detect bad practices and provide link to the best practices above.

Done

  • Creating secure best practices implementations including how to set properly secure headers on the most common platforms (eg. Apache, NGINX and Lighttpd).
  • Divide the "Tools_and_Libraries" tab into two differents tab (Scanners and Libraries).
  • Include link to attack pages.
  • Include Top Websites Examples tab.
  • Move the Best Practices to another tab.
  • Include a new tab only for browser versions compatibility.
  • Include X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies under Headers and Best Practices tab.