Angular CSRF Protection Guide: Examples and How to Enable It

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) is a security vulnerability that allows attackers to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of a user by exploiting session cookies, often without breaking into the system. This type of attack can be particularly harmful in applications where state changes, such as financial transactions, have irreversible consequences. Angular, a popular front-end framework, offers built-in CSRF protection through its HttpClient module, which leverages the cookie-to-header token mechanism to mitigate such attacks. This involves sending a random token in a cookie and verifying it with each request by comparing it with the token received from the client. In a typical CSRF scenario, an attacker might use social engineering techniques to trick users into executing malicious requests unknowingly. The article discusses how Angular’s HttpClientXsrfModule can be configured to protect against these attacks and demonstrates implementing CSRF protection in a Node.js server using the csurf middleware. Additionally, the text emphasizes the importance of CSRF protection, even for login forms, to prevent unauthorized access through stolen credentials.