Gain insights into enforcing web app security best practices, such as HTTPS, defending against XSS and clickjacking, managing HTTP cookies, and warding off DDoS attacks.

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There are more vulnerabilities than ever when creating applications for the web, so it is extremely important that software developers enforce security best practices such as, how to add protection through HTTP headers.

In this course, you will start off by learning how to prevent fraudulent SSL certificates from being served to clients, before moving on to how to defend against XSS attacks and clickjacking. 

In the latter half of the course, you’ll learn security practices related to HTTP cookies, and tips around security tradeoffs that you’ll make in your day-to-day work. Towards the end, you’ll learn how to ward off DDoS attacks, which is crucial when your application scales.

This course will demystify web security, and help you stay on top of important security-related concerns in your web apps.

Web Application Security for the Everyday Software Engineer

Suppose you are the head of IT at a company and your team intercepts attacks from a few IP addresses, so you decide to block them. 

Which of the following describes this most accurately?

Suppose you are the head of IT at a company and your team intercepts attacks from a few IP addresses, so you decide to block them.
Which of the following describes this most accurately?

Allowlisting is always a better approach than denylisting.

Allowlisting is always a better approach than denylisting.

""Error in request: ", req" gets printed to the console.

The request that the user made, which may contain PII, gets logged to your system.

A simple error message gets sent back to the user.

What happens if a request made from the following code fails?
```
app.get('/users/me', function(req, res){
    try {
        user = db.getUserByToken(req.headers.token)
        res.send(user)
    } catch(err) {
        log("Error in request: ", req)
    }
})
```

What happens if a request made from the following code fails?
<pre><code>app.get('/users/me', function(req, res){
 try {
 user = db.getUserByToken(req.headers.token)
 res.send(user)
 } catch(err) {
 log(&quot;Error in request: &quot;, req)
 }
})
</code></pre>

Users may input the sensitive data to the incorrect field and it would get logged in the clear.

We may not be able to access sensitive data since it's masked.

There is a chance that the data is not being logged correctly.

What is a pitfall of masking sensitive fields prior to logging them?

What is a pitfall of masking sensitive fields prior to logging them?

They are not since logs have restricted access by trustworthy individuals only.

Because they are at risk to get leaked to a number of entities including cloud services and those that access them, malicious employees, and external attack vectors.

Because they will be visible to other users.

Why are logs of sensitive user data considered dangerous?

Why are logs of sensitive user data considered dangerous?

A user may be able to access other users' data by incrementing/decrementing the ID.

Why is using incremental session IDs considered to be a poor choice?

Pick the best answer.

Why is using incremental session IDs considered to be a poor choice?
Pick the best answer.

The more code we write (or use), the larger the attack surface for malicious users.

The more code we write (or use), the larger the attack surface for malicious users.

It is best to always stick to your domain and create subdomains for all of your services instead of a separate domain(s). 

It is best to always stick to your domain and create subdomains for all of your services instead of a separate domain(s).

If a website holds an Extended Validation Certificate, it means that it is more secure.

If a website holds an Extended Validation Certificate, it means that it is more secure.

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Let's learn about DDOS attacks in the next chapter.

Introduction

Understanding The Browser

HTTP

Protection through HTTP Headers

HTTP Cookies

Situationals

DDoS Attacks

Bug Bounty Programs

Conclusion

Quiz Yourself on Situationals