Insecure Network Communication

Why is this important?

Ensuring that the data in transit is secured between users and your application is the most fundamental security requirement. If this security control is not in place then all bets are off and attackers have many ways to attack your users.

Check out this video for a high-level explanation:

Insufficient Transport Layer Protection

Fixing Insecure Network Communication

Option A: Use an encrypted communications channel

The communication channel used is not encrypted. The traffic could be read by an attacker intercepting the network traffic. Please read the OWASP Transport Layer Protection Cheat Sheet for details on how to do this correctly.

Detailed Instructions

  1. Go through the issues that GuardRails identified in the PR.
  2. Look for code like this in your prod.exs configuration:
  config :exchat, Exchat.Endpoint,
    http: [port: {:system, "PORT"}],
    url: [host: "example.com", port: 80],
    cache_static_manifest: "priv/static/manifest.json",
    server: true
  1. Replace it with:
  config :exchat, Exchat.Endpoint,
    http: [port: {:system, "PORT"}],
    url: [scheme: "https", host: "path.to.app", port: 443],
    force_ssl: [rewrite_on: [:x_forwarded_proto]],
    cache_static_manifest: "priv/static/manifest.json",
    secret_key_base: System.get_env("SECRET_KEY_BASE")

More information on configuring HTTPS can be found here.

  1. Test it
  2. Ship it 🚢 and relax 🌴

General References

← Insecure Processing of DataInsecure Use of Dangerous Function →