DEV Community

Louis
Louis

Posted on

Protect Your Express.js App from XSS Attacks

Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks are one of the most common and dangerous security vulnerabilities in web applications. They can compromise user data, steal sensitive information, and even lead to complete system compromise. That's why it's crucial to take action and have strong defenses in place to prevent these attacks.

xss-shield is an npm package that provides a simple and effective way to prevent XSS attacks in your application. It's a middleware function that sanitizes user input in the request body, query parameters, and route parameters using a customizable set of rules. By doing so, it ensures that any potentially malicious code is removed before it can cause any harm.

To use xss-shield, simply install it with npm or yarn and add it as middleware to your Express application:

const express = require('express'); 
const xssShield = require('xss-shield');

const app = express();

// Add the middleware to the middleware stack
app.use(xssShield());
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

That's it! Now, any user input in the request will be automatically sanitized to prevent XSS attacks. You can also customize the sanitization rules by passing options to the middleware function:

const express = require('express'); 
const xssShield = require('xss-shield');

const app = express();

// Add the middleware to the middleware stack with options
app.use(xssShield({
  whiteList: {
    a: ['href', 'title', 'target'],
    img: ['src', 'alt'],
  }
}));
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You can rest assured that your application is protected from XSS attacks. It's a simple and effective way to secure your code and prevent security vulnerabilities. Give it a try and see how easy it is to use!

Github Repo: https://github.com/Louis3797/xss-shield
Npm package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/xss-shield

Top comments (0)