What Are the Best Laravel Security Features for PHP Apps in 2022?
One of the most important aspects you must consider as a web application developer is the security and how it safeguards users’ data. To ensure security, Laravel was designed. It is a platform popular for performance and security that meets various security requirements, such as event processing and authentication mechanisms for MVC architecture.
Laravel is a development framework allowing for secure and protected information. Boasting brief and advanced features, the platform has been able to attract many users. Be it a newbie or a specialist, Laravel has become the first choice of people working with PHP projects.
Laravel has boosted the construction of mobile apps and websites and offers in-built capabilities for seamless integration. Another feather to its cap is its robust modular packaging layout and distinct features, thus making it a guaranteed choice for many Laravel Application Developers.
Let us discuss the best security features that Laravel offers:
1. CSRF Protection
CSRF stands for Cross-Site Request Forgery. It is a time-tested hacking or cybercrime technique where hackers convince a user to implement actions that they usually won’t do. Laravel is responsible for recording all existing user sessions and automatically producing a CSRF token for each. Laravel uses the Form Classes Token Method, which by default, gets turned. The token and a built-in CSRF filter can be seen in the source code.
The CSRF protection ensures that the origin of every request is genuinely from your Laravel web application development and not from any potential XSS attack by a third party like a hacker. With the CSRF filter, the users will get an HTTP error code and deny permission if it encounters a potentially malicious request.
2. Password Hashing
Laravel is available on an in-built hash mechanism constructed on the basis of Bcrypt and Argon2. In the platform, slow hashes are regarded as the best and basic guidelines that all developers adhere to. Thus, while using the platform, developers tend to avoid even popular hashing techniques, MD5 and SHA1. We recommend users go for a complicated and random password that consists of at least 32 characters to go along with this hashing. As a result, it increases the probability that their data stays protected.
Laravel’s hashing process will reduce a string of characters to a tiny constant value or offer a key that the users can use for defining the original Text. The hash function of the platform has a safe way to save hashed passcodes. Therefore, it is considered a safer form of password storage.
3. Cookies Protection
Implementing data sessions and cookies is one of the ideal ways to ensure that the data of your end-users stay confidential and keep it as secure as possible. When you activate HttpOnly as an aspect of your application’s Laravel session, you can accomplish this in the config/session.php file. It will offer an additional security layer and does not prevent Javascript from extending support to session cookies.
When you configure the cookie domain feature, it directs the cookie to have the exact origin. Therefore, only the fundamental site can set the cookie. You can also set the Same Site cookies attributes to lax or stringent to limit cookies to first-party or same-site.
4. Use of In-built Encryption
Laravel features in-built encryption that stores and manages data in the database, like credentials and credit card numbers. This arrangement facilitates encryption of some particular fields of your prototype to prevent those data bits from being lost in the database. Thus, you can keep your users’ data safe while making changes anytime you want.
It is considered the best security practice of Laravel as it gets rid of any unwanted characters, IP addresses, and illegitimacy from the database, thereby avoiding any attack from hackers. This is the reason why using the default encryption is strongly recommended rather than building your own, as the latter’s framework creators might not be safe.
5. Validating & Filtering all Data
There is a golden rule in Laravel, and that is to validate everything! Whether it involves a GET, your server, a POST request, or comes through any other route, validating everything is the key to security. Laravel is available with different validation rules and a guide on how to create a safe space for user data.
6. Authentication System for Laravel
If there is Laravel hacking, it can result in vulnerabilities to other supporting XSS and multiple files. Almost all the casualties of website hacks find that their site pages are redirected to other malicious sites. Laravel has a strong user authentication process with the help of “providers” and “guards” with the associated boilerplate code available in the scaffolding.
Guards verify users for every request, while providers allow user retrieval from the database. As a developer, you must set up the database, controllers and models. You can see in-built authentication features in the app during the process.
7. Protection Against Cross-site Scripting
During an XSS attack, an attacker enters JavaScript, which is generally into a form’s text areas of your website. So when a new visitor goes into the affected page of the form, the script will function maliciously.
Laravel provides native support that secures software from XSS attacks. So, when an attack occurs, the feature automatically starts working, thereby protecting the database.
8. SQL Injection
SQL injection is an attempt to collect user data by inserting the code into the database that is connected to the web app. It is one of the oldest and most infamous ways hackers infiltrate websites.
In a PHP environment, PDOs, or PHP Data Objects, are a database access layer where users can access numerous databases consistently. Laravel features combine these PDOs together in order to prevent the client’s intent of the SQL queries.
9. Forcing HTTPS During Sensitive Data Exchange
When you use your website on HTTP, all the data exchange, including passwords and others, takes place in plain content. During the data exchange, any infiltrator can easily steal data. In order to safeguard confidential information, it is important to use your web applications on HTTPS.
With a little help from Laravel developers, you can easily set up an SSL certificate on your website. In addition, they will help you shift your application from HTTP to HTTps, given that your website complies with all the guidelines.
These are the best security features Laravel offers to PHP developers. Apart from what we have discussed above, there are other crucial security areas too. They are:
- Constantly updating the SSL/TLS configurations
- Keeping a constant check on requests to stop DDoS attacks
- Executing a Content-Security-Policy
- Application security monitoring
Refer to the table below to get an overall idea about the security features offered by Laravel.
| Parameter | What does it do? |
|---|---|
| Cookies Protection | Change automatically generated application/encryption key into a random password that is at least 32 characters. |
| Hashing Passwords | Application of slow hashes; no use of MD5 and SHA1. |
| Validating & Filtering Data | Validate all incoming data; use Laravel’s extensive vast rules. |
| Encryption | Deploy Laravel’s in-built encryption; it’s not recommended to build your own. |
| Sessions | Expire and destroy sessions after any big change. |
Concluding Two-cents
With all the information, we hope you got an understanding of the basics of Laravel security and the reason for its popularity among the community of PHP developers. Undoubtedly, it is an extremely versatile platform with the capability of empowering software developers to prioritise the security of their online presence.
One of the most robust PHP frameworks for website and mobile applications is Laravel. Its security features offer holistic protection from hackers or any third party attacks.