Best Practices for AJAX Security

To secure your Web App you can consider following:

Client Side Security:

• Opt for ‘.innerText’, Not ‘.innerHTML’: When it comes to displaying text, go for .innerText over .innerHTML. Why? Well, .innerText does some behind-the-scenes encoding that helps ward off XSS problems.
• Avoid eval() and Similar Tools: Never use eval(). It’s problematic and suggests design issues. Keep your code clean; steer clear of eval() and its counterparts.
• Implement CSRF Protection: We can use something called anti-CSRF tokens. It like special secret handshakes. It make sure that when your web app gets a request from a user, it is coming from a trusted source and not from someone trying to trick the app. for each user it should be a unique.
• Use HTTPS: When you send information from your web app to a server or from a server to your web app,, it is like putting it in a strong sealed envelope. This envelope can not be easily opened by anyone snooping around. It is like sending a secret message in a locked box. Using HTTPS guarantees that your data is encrypted and only the sender and the receiver can understand it.
• Input Validation and sanitization: Input validation ensures that a information entered by used is in expected format or not. It means if required thing is number then input validation check that it is number or not. sanitization is like filtering a input data by user to check it does not contain any scripts or code snippets.
• Session Management: It includes techniques such as session timeouts and token-based authentication. session timeout means the period for which the user’s session remains valid after that users have to again login into a website. token-based authentication is a security mechanism used to verify the identity of users.

Server Side Security:

• Configure CORS Properly: Cross-Origin Resource Sharing is like a set of rules that you can put in place to decide which websites are allowed to ask your server for things by configuring CORS headers. Only trusted domains should be granted access to your resources.
• Validate Input on Server Side: Input validation is like the first filter. It checks if the information is in the right format. if you are expecting a number, it makes sure you receive a number and not something else. It is also important to check the information on the server side. By doing this you can prevent injection attacks.
• Implement Access Control: Implement a access control list where a user with permission can only make a AJAX request. and also user can access things based on there role. By doing this only a authorized users can perform a actions through AJAX.
• Error Handling: Give easy response message to user to understand and don’t give important details about how the server or application works.
• Avoid building XML or JSON by hand, use the framework: For a secure journey, let the framework lead the way. Crafting things manually might invite security troubles.

AJAX makes internet apps work easily without reloading the entire web page. But there are protection issues with AJAX that developers need to take care of it. In this article, we’re going to talk about why securing AJAX is important.