Protecting Next.js apps from CSRF attacks

The article delves into Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks, particularly within the context of a Next.js application, and outlines strategies for protection. It describes CSRF attacks as scenarios where a user's session, authenticated via cookies, is exploited by a malicious site to perform unintended actions without the user's consent. To mitigate such vulnerabilities, the article emphasizes using SameSite and HttpOnly cookie attributes, which restrict cookie transmission across sites, and implementing CSRF tokens, which validate the legitimacy of requests by matching server-stored tokens with those sent by the client. The next-csrf package is highlighted as a tool to streamline CSRF protection in Next.js by generating and validating these tokens, ensuring requests have authenticity checks before processing. Additionally, the article discusses how to configure cookies with secure attributes to bolster defenses against these attacks, and provides insights into how the next-csrf package can be integrated within a Next.js application to enhance security measures effectively.