offsecnotes

Methods & headers

by frankheat

TRACE Method

The web server responds to TRACE method requests by echoing the received request.

Security implication

This can reveal sensitive information, like internal authentication headers added by reverse proxies, such as an authorization header.


X-Forwarded-For

Theory

Security implication


X-Forwarded-Host

The X-Forwarded-Host (XFH) header is a de-facto standard header for identifying the original host requested by the client in the Host HTTP request header.

Security implication

Test this header when you need to verify a link generated by the application. For example, a password reset email might contain a link like https://website.com/reset-password?token=<token>. By modifying this header, you can control “website.com”.


X-Original-URL / X-Rewrite-URL

Some applications support non-standard headers such these in order to allow overriding the target URL in requests with the one specified in the header value.

Security implication


Referrer-Policy

Security implication