In the recent couple of years, Node.js has become quite popular among developers. It is widely used for building websites, web applications, and largely backend microservices. It plays an important role in any application development stack.
Node.js allows developers to install third-party modules, which makes the development quite quick and efficient. Also, it opens up new opportunities for Application Developers. Meanwhile, it is quite a popular framework; there are quite a few chances that hackers might try to hack applications.
According to a recent study, approximately 76 percent of people have used open source technologies for building applications. However, cyber-attacks and security concerns are always a part of major discussions.
Recently it was found that 14 percent of NPM or Node JS Package Manager is quite vulnerable to different security threats. However, it is quite difficult to anticipate the level of the risk. Hence it is always advisable to follow node js security best practices.
In this blog, we will discuss the top 11 best practices to secure your Node.js Application recommended by Node.js Development Company UK.
Following Are The Top 11 Node.Js Security Best Practices:
1. Never Run Node.Js Application As Root
In different container services such as microservices and docker, Node.js is executed in different ways. While applications are running in Docker, it is quite easy to spin them, although the application runs in an isolated environment.
It is quite possible that a hacker can do an XSS attack with a Node JS application running as a root. Also, it will open up new opportunities for hacking capabilities.
2. Enhance The Security One Step Further With Reverse Proxies.
If you provide access to the web application through reverse proxy, then you add an extra layer of security. This filters out the request because it reaches the application. However, allowing only a specific number of requests is also essential.
You can use an open-source NGINX web server to play the role of a reverse proxy. It will help you to implement connection timeouts. It would ensure that no connection is left alive for a long period of time.
3. Always Create An Https Response Header.
Additional extra security measures related to HTTP can easily bypass various minor security attacks. One of the common mechanisms is CORS, it enhances the security of the API-based Application.
There are also various modules available like helmets, which will provide extra security to the application. With Helmet, Developers can implement nearly 11 best security measures for HTTP security with a small line of code.
4. Avoid Any Data Leaks In The Application.
As a developer, various times it is recommended not to trust what is coming from the front end, but also not to trust what you send to the front end. It is pretty common practice to send all the data and filter out the specific data to show on the front end. But this also opens up the opportunity for the hacker to capture the hidden data from the backend.
A basic example is when you send a complete list of users with all the details and decide to show only first name and last name on front end. Here, although you apply filters to show limited information, hackers can get access to complete information from the backend.
5. Avoid Errors That Disclose A Lot Of Information.
While implementing error handling, there are quite a few important things to consider. The first and foremost important key takeaway is not to return the full error object. A full error can reveal complete information and sometimes the secrets of the third-party users.
Secondly, always use a catch clause to wrap the routes and don't crash the Nodejs application while an error gets triggered from any client request. This would help you to prevent hackers from knowing malicious requests that will crash the applications.
6. Manage Application Secrets Efficiently.
There are a lot of secrets such as API keys, connection strings, and credentials that are quite important for any website. Therefore, developers should always use best practices to keep them safe in the code.
One of the common ways to do this is to use environment variables within the system’s operating system. Further Node js can call environment variables when needed.
In many instances, an application might need more than one environment variable, during which developers can use Dotenv. The Dotenv package would offer some best ways to manage the secrets.
7. Remove All The Unnecessary Routes
As a developer never add the pages that the end users would not wish. If they do so, it might be possible that there might be some security attack. Therefore always ensure to remove the unnecessary routes from the web application.
There are a lot of third-party frameworks and libraries that you can use to disable the attack routes and security threats.
8. Set Up Monitoring And Logging
Most Node.js developers would think that logging and monitoring do not impact the security of applications but it does. The goal is to make the applications quite secure from where the developer starts, but it is always a constant ongoing process.
And to handle security processes while developing, it is quite essential to implement logging and monitoring. Various hackers would try to make the application inaccessible, which is difficult to detect. Hence during such time, monitoring logs could help you
Basic logging would help you to get the complete information, hence you need some advanced metrics tool to get the complete report.
9. Always Use Security Linters
Security linters like eslint-plugin security would help you to get complete information when you use some unsecured code practices such as nonliteral regex expressions or eval use cases. Further, you can also fuse some automatic vulnerability scanners along with linters to do static analysis.
10. While Managing Sessions, Set Up Cookie Flags
Session Management is quite a fundamental web aspect for any application as it manages the various requests and security. The data relating to sessions is sent to the backend through cookies. If there is improper cookie usage, it can open up various security vulnerabilities.
Therefore, while managing a session, validate the domain match through URL or Uniform Resource Locator that has made a request.
11. Avoid Dos Attacks By Putting The Size Constraint On Requests
While developing an application, ensure the request size is quite small to avoid any large data as there could be security vulnerabilities. Also, it is quite difficult to process the huge body size request.
A large request can cause a service denial attack for genuine requests by crashing the app and filling up the disk space. With the help of the Node js framework, you can add constraints on the request and enhance the application's scalability.
Conclusion
Small security vulnerability can sometimes cause a thousand dollars by compromising a large amount of data. If the damage is quite huge, then it is quite difficult to stop the attack. Hence all the node js require best practices to enhance security.
By following the above-mentioned Node Js Security best practices, a developer can build high-quality applications at a production level. Also, it would help you to improve the overall application performance.
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