Assessing the adoption of HTTP security headers

Abstract

Recent cybersecurity evaluations reveal that many user vulnerabilities are linked to web technologies, mainly stemming from inadequate or improper usage of HTTP headers. Security headers in HTTP responses provide an essential layer of protection against common web vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking, and MIME-type sniffing attacks. These headers, including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, and X-Frame-Options, among others, serve as safeguards by enforcing stricter communication policies between web servers and browsers.