Insecurely generated cookies - HttpOnly

Need

To protect cookies from being accessed by client-side scripts

Context

• Usage of Elixir for building scalable and fault-tolerant applications
• Usage of Plug Cowboy for building web applications in Elixir
• Usage of secure cookie handling for session management

Description

Non compliant code

defmodule Vulnerable do
  use Plug.Router

  plug :match
  plug :dispatch

  post "" do
    conn
    |> put_resp_cookie("sensitive_info", "some_value")
    |> send_resp(200, "OK")
  end

  match _ do
    send_resp(conn, 404, "Not found")
  end
end

In this Elixir code snippet, a cookie is being set without the HttpOnly attribute, making it susceptible to being read by client-side scripts.

Steps

• Set the HttpOnly attribute to true while setting the cookies.
• Do not store sensitive information in cookies if possible.

Compliant code

defmodule Secure do
  use Plug.Router

  plug :match
  plug :dispatch

  post "" do
    conn
    |> put_resp_cookie("sensitive_info", "some_value", http_only: true)
    |> send_resp(200, "OK")
  end

  match _ do
    send_resp(conn, 404, "Not found")
  end
end

In this Elixir code snippet, the cookie is set with the HttpOnly attribute set to true, protecting it from being read by client-side scripts.

References

• 128.Insecurely generated cookies - HttpOnly