Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) is a type of attack in which an attacker tricks the victim into performing unwanted actions in a web application they are already logged into. The attack exploits the victim's authentication information to perform malicious actions on the victim's behalf without the victim's knowledge.
How does cross-site request forgery work?

A CSRF attack usually takes place in two steps:

1. The attacker creates a malicious website or email that contains a specially crafted form or link that triggers an action on the target website. This action could be changing settings, transferring funds or deleting data.
2. The victim who falls into the attacker's trap visits the malicious website or clicks on the manipulated link. This sends a request to the target website, which executes the unwanted action. Since the victim is already logged into the target website application, the authentication information is automatically transmitted along with the request and the action is carried out on behalf of the victim.

How can you protect yourself against cross-site request forgery?

Various security measures can be taken to protect against CSRF attacks:

1. Use of CSRF tokens: The web application can generate CSRF tokens and embed them in each form or link. When sending the request, the CSRF token must be checked to ensure that the request comes from the correct user and not from an attacker.
2. Limiting the validity of requests: The web application can implement mechanisms to ensure that certain actions can only be performed by pages that originate from the same domain as the target web application. This prevents malicious requests from being executed from other domains.
3. Use of same-site cookies: Same-site cookies can be configured so that they are only used for requests from the same website. This reduces the risk of CSRF attacks as cookies are no longer automatically sent to malicious sites.

By implementing these security measures, web applications can be effectively protected from CSRF attacks, ensuring the integrity and security of the application and user data.