Web Security

Introduction Cookies are the cornerstone of state management on the web. They enable everything from user authentication to personalization, but their ubiquity also makes them a prime target for attackers. One of the most effective, yet often misunderstood, defenses against client‑side attacks is the HttpOnly flag. When correctly applied, HttpOnly can dramatically reduce the risk of session hijacking via cross‑site scripting (XSS) and other client‑side exploits. In this article we will: ...

Introduction In modern web architecture, the term reverse proxy appears in almost every conversation about scalability, security, and reliability. While a forward proxy sits between clients and the internet, a reverse proxy sits in front of one or more servers, acting as an intermediary for inbound traffic. It receives client requests, applies a set of policies, and forwards those requests to the appropriate backend service. The response then travels back through the same proxy, allowing the proxy to perform transformations, caching, authentication, and more before delivering the final payload to the client. ...

Introduction Web applications have come a long way from the static pages of the late 1990s, but the fundamental challenge of identifying a user across multiple HTTP requests remains unchanged. Cookies have been the de‑facto mechanism for persisting state, while modern JavaScript‑heavy front‑ends demand more flexible, API‑centric authentication strategies. Enter the cookie‑swap pattern—a design that blends the simplicity of cookies with the robustness of token‑based authentication. At its core, the pattern exchanges a short‑lived, temporary cookie for a secure authentication token (often a JWT or opaque session identifier) after the user’s credentials have been validated. By doing so, it thwarts classic attacks such as session fixation, cross‑site request forgery (CSRF), and even some cross‑site scripting (XSS) scenarios. ...

In Full (strict) mode, Cloudflare encrypts all traffic between visitors and your origin server while strictly validating the origin’s SSL certificate to ensure it’s valid, unexpired, and issued by a trusted authority like a public CA or Cloudflare’s Origin CA.[1][4][5] This setup provides end-to-end encryption without exposing your server to unverified connections, preventing man-in-the-middle attacks.[4] Why Use Full (Strict) SSL Mode? Cloudflare offers several SSL/TLS encryption modes, but Full (strict) stands out for maximum security: ...

Introduction If you put anything on the internet—an API, a website, an admin portal—you need SSL/TLS. It’s what turns http into https, encrypts traffic, and lets users verify they’re talking to the right server. But “turn on TLS” hides a lot of complexity: ciphers, certificates, OCSP, mTLS, key rotation, HTTP/2, QUIC, and more. This in-depth, zero-to-hero guide demystifies SSL/TLS. You’ll learn the concepts, how the protocol works, how to issue and deploy certificates, how to configure popular servers securely, how to test and monitor, and how to avoid common pitfalls. By the end, you’ll be able to ship production-grade TLS with confidence. ...