When a cookie is configured with the HttpOnly attribute set to true, the browser guaranties that no client-side script will
be able to read it. In most cases, when a cookie is created, the default value of HttpOnly is false and it’s up to the developer
to decide whether or not the content of the cookie can be read by the client-side script. As a majority of Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks target
the theft of session-cookies, the HttpOnly attribute can help to reduce their impact as it won’t be possible to exploit the XSS
vulnerability to steal session-cookies.
Ask Yourself Whether
- the cookie is sensitive, used to authenticate the user, for instance a session-cookie
- the
HttpOnly attribute offer an additional protection (not the case for an XSRF-TOKEN cookie / CSRF token for example)
There is a risk if you answered yes to any of those questions.
Recommended Secure Coding Practices
- By default the
HttpOnly flag should be set to true for most of the cookies and it’s mandatory for session /
sensitive-security cookies.
Sensitive Code Example
In php.ini you can specify the flags for the session cookie which is security-sensitive:
session.cookie_httponly = 0; // Sensitive: this sensitive session cookie is created with the httponly flag set to false and so it can be stolen easily in case of XSS vulnerability
Same thing in PHP code:
session_set_cookie_params($lifetime, $path, $domain, true, false); // Sensitive: this sensitive session cookie is created with the httponly flag (the fifth argument) set to false and so it can be stolen easily in case of XSS vulnerability
If you create a custom security-sensitive cookie in your PHP code:
$value = "sensitive data";
setcookie($name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, true, false); // Sensitive: this sensitive cookie is created with the httponly flag (the seventh argument) set to false and so it can be stolen easily in case of XSS vulnerability
By default setcookie and setrawcookie functions set httpOnly flag to
false (the seventh argument) and so cookies can be stolen easily in case of XSS vulnerability:
$value = "sensitive data";
setcookie($name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, true); // Sensitive: a sensitive cookie is created with the httponly flag (the seventh argument) not defined (by default set to false)
setrawcookie($name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, true); // Sensitive: a sensitive cookie is created with the httponly flag (the seventh argument) not defined (by default set to false)
Compliant Solution
session.cookie_httponly = 1; // Compliant: the sensitive cookie is protected against theft thanks (cookie_httponly=1)
session_set_cookie_params($lifetime, $path, $domain, true, true); // Compliant: the sensitive cookie is protected against theft thanks to the fifth argument set to true (HttpOnly=true)
$value = "sensitive data";
setcookie($name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, true, true); // Compliant: the sensitive cookie is protected against theft thanks to the seventh argument set to true (HttpOnly=true)
setrawcookie($name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, true, true); // Compliant: the sensitive cookie is protected against theft thanks to the seventh argument set to true (HttpOnly=true)
See
