Security headers on 4,688 small-business websites: 49.7% met none of 7 criteria(rackcrunch.com)
15 pointsby terrybyte2 hours ago5 comments
  • stargrazer19 minutes ago
    So.. you've written up what you checked, and what didn't match what ever criteria you had.

    But.. what does it mean? Why enforce certain headers? Why enforce certain options? There is a section which kinda looks at this, but not really.

    You have a bunch of links at the end for resources, but why not just provide the rationale for each rule or option inclusion in the article as well? What does each prevent or allow and why?

  • aetherspawn38 minutes ago
    It’s ridiculous that the answer to a secure web is for everyone to sprinkle the magic salt and not something on the browser side
    • rackcrunch16 minutes ago
      Referrer-Policy shows it can work. When the header is missing, browsers fall back to strict-origin-when-cross-origin. 86.6% of the sites we scanned don't send it, and we didn't count that as a failure for that reason. The other headers don't have a safe default like that yet.
      • axospaxos6 minutes ago
        That sounds more like it is a condemnation of all these other headers that can't work for 86.6% of sites by requiring nothing.
    • alserio25 minutes ago
      we'd need an epoch like reset to good defaults
      • aetherspawn14 minutes ago
        For important issues like security - just break the web, it will adjust.
  • GaProgMan32 minutes ago
    And if any of the websites use .NET, they can get almost all of the recommended security headers in one line by using a NuGet package I created: https://gaprogman.github.io/OwaspHeaders.Core/
  • fitsumbelay17 minutes ago
    for static sites on a VPS it's fair to expect the host to provision these, yes?
  • n4pw01fan hour ago
    Nice work! You gave me something to fix!!
    • tumdum_38 minutes ago
      Sadly non of it was written by a human being.
      • rackcrunch4 minutes ago
        Fair. The study is backed by a human being who stands behind every number. And absolutely, use whatever tool you like.
    • rackcrunch16 minutes ago
      Thanks, glad it helped!