React.js Vulnerabilities And It’s Solutions That You Should Not Ignore

At a first glance, cybersecurity appears to be intangible. App’s unique features, attractive user interface and smooth performance will be of no use unless it is safe. It is applicable to apps based on React.js too. Most of the businesses are facing issues regarding app security. If you’re also one of them, then you are at the right place. Here we came with some react.js security vulnerabilities and how to fix them? Before digging into it, let’s see some common react.js cyberattacks.

Most Common React.js Cyberattacks-

Each time when React.js is updated, new security flaws emerge that go undiscovered. Hence it is difficult to cover all the possible cyberattacks that React.js may be vulnerable to. Let’s have a look at most common react.js cyberattacks-

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)-

DDoS attacks overwhelm a web app infrastructure with more traffic than it is able to handle. Their main purpose is to make an application inaccessible and unavailable to its users. Some common ways to conduct DDoS attacks are UDP, ICMP, SYN and HTTP request flooding. As an attacker tries to exhaust resources, like memory and CPU processing time, a server and firewall must process every request and respond to it.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)-

Adding malicious scripts into the code of a web app is called XSS. This script gets selected by the browser and interpreted as valid, and then malicious code run as a part of app. XSS attack might allow the attacker to steal user passwords, collect sensitive data from app’s pages, make requests to servers and so on.

XML External Entity Attack (XXE)-

This kind of attack occur in online apps that employ XML(Extensible Markup Language). Text based language used in web apps to store and organize data. XML parser needs to convert XML into understandable code and XXE injections generally target such parsers. Using XXE, a perpetrator can perform a CSRF or DDoS attack. Here the problem is that XML parsers are vulnerable to XXE by default, hence it’s upto your development team to ensure that the code is free from such vulnerabilities.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)-

To commit CSRF attack, a perpetrator crafts an email or web page that will convince a victim to perform a state-changing request on web app. It can be granting permissions. Generally an attacker exploits links or invisible images to conduct a GET request or a form for PUT or POST request. Javascript code provides a way to craft that requests, but it will be prevented by any modern browser unless it’s allowed on the web app server.

React.js Security Vulnerabilities And It’s Solutions-

Here are some of the most common react.js vulnerabilities- Server side rendering, Dangerous URL schemes, Broken authentication, SQL Injections, DangerouslySetInnerHTML, Escape hatches. Let’s see each one in detail.

1. Server Side Rendering-

Main advantage of React is SSR(server side rendering). This features ensures a faster page load, better performance and ease of incorporating SEO. But it makes react apps prone to attacks. But why? Lots of React apps use Redux for app state management, that uses JSON, lightweight data-interchange format, to set initial app state:

<script> //WARNING: See the following for security issues around embedding JSON in HTML: // https://redux.js.org/recipes/server-rendering/#security-considerations window._PRELOADED_STATE__= ${JSON.stringify(preloadedState).replace(/</g, ‘\u003c’ )} </script>

This is harmful because “JSON. stringify” will not recognize sensitive data or XSS code. Though the above example has code to mitigate simple XSS attacks, it’s not silver bullet by any means. Also, it’s worth mentioning that SSR opens a way for hackers to exploit vulnerabilities in third-party NPM packages.

A solution to this is-

Use Regular-Expressions Use serialize-javascript package

2. Harmful URL Schemes-

When hackers add harmful code starting with Javascript to URLs, links to other pages become harmful. Whenever a user clicks on a link, script in the browser is activated. React.js app security doesn’t restrict use of URLs that don’t start with “HTTP:” or “HTTPS:” and it lacks capabilities to protect against possible attacks.

Solution to this is-

Avoid the use of URLs as input. Create an application that takes YouTube video ISs instead of YouTube video URLs. If the above option is not available, use trusted third-party tools like Sanitize URL NPM package to sanitize these harmful links. Ensure that everyone from the development team is using the same sanitization code.

3. Escape Hatches-

Main advantage of React is, it saves developers time from manually putting data into the browser DOM to render components. But there are some of the cases where programmers require direct access to the DOM elements.

For such cases, react offers escape hatches, like “findDOMNode” and “createRef”. App can manipulate element directly without going through React, because an escape hatch returns the native DOM elements with their full API. It leads to an XSS vulnerability.

Solution to this is-

When direct output is required, use proper DOM APIs to generate HTML nodes. Don’t output the HTML code, only text Sanitize data with DOMPurify before putting it into page

4. DangerouslySetInnerHTML-

Some of the times, there are instances when programmers need to render HTML code that comes from untrusted sources. The Simplest and best way to render it in the browser is to assign it to the inner HTML attribute directly. React.js limits its use by engaging “dangerouslySetInnerHTML” property, as it may cause XSS vulnerabilities. But this property doesn’t ensures the security of code and renders all data whether it is non harmful or harmful.

Role of “dangerouslySetInnerHTML” is to inform programmer that code assigned to it might be insecure. Also, it is assumed that programmers won’t use this without reading documentation.

Solution to this is-

Avoid the use of generated properties with “createElement” API. Always sanitize dynamic values assigned to the “dangerouslySetInnerHTML” property with DOMPurify. Encapsulate this behavior in security component and motivate programmers to use it.

5. Broken Authentication-

Authentication and user authorization occurs because of the insecure connection between web client and server. Interfering with authentication a nd authorization protocols, hackers can hack user data, passwords, sensitive information etc.

So as to protect the HTTP basic authentication protocols, programmers should perform following action-

Use suitable authentication techniques, like ensuring that web app responds with a 401 status error page if authentication fails. Evaluate whether the domain “WWW” header has a valid attribute that aids in avoiding mismatches between user IDs and passwords. Implement password strength and weakness tests Include cloud-native authentication like Google Cloud Identity Platform or Azure Active Directory.

6. SQL Injection-

SQL Injection attacks targets app’s databases. Attackers adds malicious SQL code into a database and get access to the data contained inside. And they can modify, remove or create new records if they have admin privileges. So as to reduce number of SQL attacks, web developers can-

Assign database roles to accounts Employ vulnerability scanners Implement whitelists to filter all kinds of inputs Validate all API methods by following their API schemes When a web app may only use one statement (SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT or DELETE) for particular actions, apply concept of least privilege to all accounts.

7. Broken Access Control-

Ensure that all the limitations and restrictions on authorized users are sufficient. Ignoring this rule can lead to any user being able to access unauthorized control features. Consider the following-

Restrict functionality access Provide role-based authentication only

8. Unreliably Incorporated Protection Layer –

Just a small mismatch in APIs may lead to sensitive data exposure. To prevent this, follow the below tips:

Update encrypted algorithms as soon as the latest version is available. Disable automated form caching and auto-filling features in security-criteria UI components

9. Third Party Vulnerabilities-

In lots of cases, React alone has nothing to do with your applications vulnerabilities. Use of third-party libraries, APIs, modules and frameworks might allow security flaws to sneak into your application. Implementing the React web app security as listed follow will protect your app against these “extremely originated” vulnerabilities:

Audit NPM packages for known vulnerabilities using npm-audit. Ensure that old version of components are patched with latest once Conduct manually updates Before adding any third-party components to application, scan them for vulnerabilities

Also know- How To Optimize Performance Of React App?