In episode 72 of the We Hack Purple Podcast host Tanya Janca brings Scott Helme back on because she just cannot get enough when it comes to security headers! You can watch and listen to his first episode here (https://wehackpurple.com/podcast/episode-69-with-scott-helme/). In this episode we focus on the “new” security headers from Scott’s great blog article where he first introduced the public to them (https://scotthelme.co.uk/coop-and-coep/). The new security header’s focus on protecting us from side-channel attacks like Spectre and Meltdown, and we really honed in on how to configure each one, and why we would need or want them. The features are powerful, and we discussed building up to using them, for best results.
Part of the reason that Scott built SecurityHeaders.com was to contribute to solving the problem of ‘how do we get the message out there’. SecurityHeaders.com is an educational tool rather than any kind of definitive or perfect security assessment tool, but it’s still incredibly useful. He’s working hard to raise awareness, and podcast episodes like this can help.
One of the most striking things Scott hears when teaching his and Troy Hunt’s ‘Hack Yourself First’ course when they talk about headers like CSP and HSTS, is: “Wow, I didn’t know this existed!” There is a huge gap that we need to bridge in security between these things existing, and people knowing they exist and then actually using them. This is a bug hurdle for folks like us.
We also talked a bit about how all of these security headers are able to create reports and tell you what’s up with your app. Lucky for us, Scott built Report-URI so we can receive those reports with ease!
Scott also has another free tool he created: https://crawler.ninja/ too, where he scans the top 1 million sites every day and looks at various things, including their use of security headers. As an example, you can see this list of sites using a CSP from today: https://crawler.ninja/files/csp-sites.txt
Scott also creates reports using his crawler data that showing trends over time and changes in the usage of security features like various security headers: https://scotthelme.co.uk/tag/crawler-report/
Very special thanks to our sponsor: Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu!
Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu are hosting CYBERJUTSU CON 4.0 and the 10th Annual Cyberjutsu Awards on June 24, 2023!!! The con Con will consist of Hands-on Workshops, Capture The Flag (CTF) Competitions, Professional Headshots, Recruiting Opportunities, Celebration, and more. Participants will walk away with hands-on knowledge that can be applied immediately on the job. You can check out the event here: https://womenscyberjutsu.org/page/CyberCon2023
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