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What is the use of HttpOnly flag?
According to the Microsoft Developer Network, HttpOnly is an additional flag included in a Set-Cookie HTTP response header. Using the HttpOnly flag when generating a cookie helps mitigate the risk of client side script accessing the protected cookie (if the browser supports it).
In order to understand why the httpOnly flag adds no value in preventing CSRF, you need to understand both CSRF and how cookies work. The httpOnly flag, in general, does provide value in that it prevents client access to those cookies, and if your server returns any cookies, you should probably make them httpOnly .
What is CSRF token cookie?
Cross-site request forgery, also known as one-click attack or session riding and abbreviated as CSRF (sometimes pronounced sea-surf) or XSRF, is a type of malicious exploit of a website where unauthorized commands are submitted from a user that the web application trusts.
Why do I need to use the HttpOnly flag?
The httponly flag is used to prevent javascript from accessing sensitive cookies like the session cookies in the event of a successful Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attack.
What does Cookie session without’httponly’flag mean?
Cookie session without ‘HttpOnly’ flag An HTTP cookie is a small piece of information that a server sends to the user’s web browser. The Cookie header stores the HTTP cookies previously sent by the web server with the Set-Cookie header.
When do you need to remove the HTTP only flag?
Yes, there are cases where you don’t want HTTP ONLY or SECURE. If you need javascript to see the cookie value, then you remove the HTTP-Only flag. A couple cases – some sites track the page state in a cookie using javascript to read and write the cookie value.
What happens if a website does not support HttpOnly?
If a browser does not support HttpOnly and a website attempts to set an HttpOnly cookie, the HttpOnly flag will be ignored by the browser, thus creating a traditional, script accessible cookie. As a result, the cookie (typically your session cookie) becomes vulnerable to theft of modification by malicious script. Mitigating.