Laravel security features for web applications

One of the most crucial elements to consider when designing web apps is security, which protects the data of users on certain websites. This is important because front end security is one of the most targeted places for getting customer data. The hackers often tend to target web apps that use old technology with well known techniques like SQL injections. However, like the saying goes, the website is only as good as the programmers who have developed it. In this article, we will focus on Laravel, a popular PHP framework and why it is a good pick for developing web applications in the modern day.

As far as the technology goes, Laravel is a PHP development framework that is known for its high performance as well as its ability to provide reliable security. Developers are known to utilize many components of the framework with a high level of trust because the framework itself is open source and supported by a large community. However, developers must also ensure that best practices regarding software development are followed when providing Laravel development services to clients, which will also be discussed in this article.

Prerequisites for developing web apps using Laravel

There are certain prerequisites that you need to have before you develop good web apps with the help of Laravel. We assume you have the following or the latest versions of the software installed in your computer for good measure of security.

• Laravel 5.5 or above
• PHP 7.1 or above
• MySQL

It is also a good thing to have a trustworthy cloud service for your web app so that you don't experience any kind of server issues. If you cannot pay for high profile cloud services like AWS, make sure that you have one that has enough community support.

Laravel's built in security features

Laravel is a robust framework because it comes with the following features that are immediately implemented on the web app after deployment. Any vulnerability in the framework is also constantly checked by its community.

Laravel authentication system

Laravel already has a solid user authentication system in place, with boilerplate code included in the scaffolding. To make the authentication process easier, Laravel employs "providers" and "guards." "Guards" are used to authenticate users for each request they make, while "providers" make it easier to obtain users from the database. The only thing left for the developers to do is build up the database, controllers, and models. Authentication elements are added into the app during the process.

Password hashing

Laravel features a built-in hash mechanism that is based on Bcrypt and Argon2. Slow hashes are what's considered to be excellent hashes in Laravel, and is a basic guideline followed by virtually all developers using it. As a result, weak hashing techniques such as MD5 and SHA1, although popular, tend to be avoided while using laravel. It is typically recommended that users still use a complex, randomized password of at least 32 characters to go along with this hashing to increase the probability that their data remains secure.

Protection against CSRF

Cross site request forgery or CSRF is a common tactic hackers use to gain access to a web app through faulty requests. To combat this, Laravel employs CSRF tokens, which ensure that fraudulent requests cannot be generated by third parties. Laravel does this by creating and integrating a valid token into every request that occurs in the form of an AJAX call. Laravel checks the request token with the one kept in the user's session when the request is made. If the tokens don't match, the request is deemed invalid, and no further action is taken.

Protection against XSS

During a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack, hackers insert malicious JavaScript code into the text fields of a form on your website. The script executes with the hacker's intended impact on the website whenever new visitors access the vulnerable area of the form. However, Laravel security features are made to protect web apps against cross-site scripting (XSS) threats. The function is activated automatically and secures the database. As a result, any code using escape tags is converted to HTML.

SQL injection

SQL injection is injection of code into the database connected to the web app in an attempt to gather user data or simply to create harm. It is one of the most notorious ways hackers are known to infiltrate websites. Now PDOs, or PHP Data Objects, are a database access layer in PHP that allow users to access numerous databases in a consistent manner. Laravel includes a functionality that links these PDOs together so that no client may change the intent of the SQL queries.

Cookies protection

Your cookies will also be protected by Laravel. The Application Key is generated automatically by Laravel; however, if necessary, developers can also update it in the application.php file. The developers need to use a text editor to do this in laravel 3, but laravel 5 has simplified this editing process. To produce safe encrypted strings and hashes, the Application Key makes use of encryption and cookie classes, and this key has been renamed as the "encryption key" in laravel 5 and above.

Available Laravel security packages

Laravel provides a number of security packages to improve the security of its applications. While we won't be able to go through all of them, these are the most popular security-focused Laravel packages:

Laravel security

Laravel security is a popular package that is well-known for eradicating XSS vulnerabilities from codebases. It has recently been ported to Laravel 5 from Codeigniter 3.

Laravel security component:

The Laravel security component primarily protects roles and objects, and it combines Symfony's security core onto itself.

Laravel ACL

Laravel-ACL secures the Laravel authentication process by providing role-based permissions. In applications, the package helps make the protection of routes and CRUD(create, read, update, delete) controller methods easier.

Best practices in laravel while developing web apps

Even though the laravel framework is built for security, it is regarded that developers follow the following best practices so that their web app is as secure as possible.

Validate everything

This is a practice that is regarded as necessary in every programming language including laravel. Any data that gets to the web app should be validated, regardless of whether it comes from your server, a GET or a POST request, or any other route. Laravel includes a number of validation criteria and guidelines for creating your own security, which developers should follow.

Use double bracing and security headers

Because this framework is vulnerable to XSS attacks, developers can take certain precautions to avoid them. The blade template engine's double brace syntax ensures that the data in the variable is safe to show. Using security headers, which offer an extra layer of protection to the web app or website, is another technique to improve app security with Laravel.

Use default encryption

Laravel's built-in encryption is the single best approach to make your online application safe. As a result, it is strongly advised to utilize the framework's default encryption rather than creating your own or using a third party encryption code which may not be that strong. The framework's authors can only speak in favor of the built in encryption.

Force HTTPS during sensitive data transmission

When you set up your website using HTTP, all of the information shared, including passwords and other sensitive information, is sent as plain text. As a result, anyone snooping the transmission path might readily steal it. To protect this information, always deploy your web apps over HTTPS to protect sensitive data. Developers may quickly install an SSL certificate on a web app with the help of a Laravel developer who can effortlessly convert your application from HTTP to HTTPS.

Use strict HTTPS session management

HTTP sessions save some amount of critical information about app users. As a result, following each substantial state change to the web app, such as a password or security update, it is critical that you remove sessions. It is recommended that developers look into Laravel session management documentation for more information.

Other practices

Apart from the aspects mentioned above, there are several additional significant security areas that developers should investigate. The following procedures are too intricate to discuss in this article, but it is recommended that developers:

• Use application security monitoring
• Restrict requests to prevent DDoS attacks
• Establishing a content security policy

Conclusion

As you can see, PHP is a good choice of a programming language if you are going to build web applications. Even though it has been around for some time, skilled developers well versed in PHP and Laravel, the most robust framework in the programming language can build high performing and secure web apps on which a good UI can then be used. However if you want to build a good web application, you should also make sure that it is updated on a regular basis. This is where a Laravel development company like Nextbrain can help. The company has over 5 years of experience in Laravel and other popular programming languages, and also employs in-house UX/UI designers that implement unique and easily understandable UI for web apps.