Secure Website

Secure website with registration, sign in, session management and CRUD controls.

• Used PHP Data Objects (PDO) for securely accessing a database in PHP (MySQL database included).
• Used CSS Flexbox for a responsive design.
• No framework was used.
• All the scripts are successfully validated with the Markup Validation Service.
• Built with security in mind.

The following attacks are prevented:

• Brute Force,
• Session Fixation,
• SQL Injection,
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS),
• Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF),
• etc.

Tested on XAMPP for Windows v7.4.3 (64 bit) with Chrome v80.0.3987.149 (64-bit) and Firefox v74.0 (64-bit).

Made for educational purposes. I hope it will help!

Apache Hardening

Prevent version disclosure. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\extra\httpd-default.conf’ and set ServerTokens to Prod and ServerSignature to Off.

Prevent directory listing. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\httpd.conf’, navigate to DocumentRoot section and remove Indexes from Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI.

Prevent ‘/icons/’ directory listing. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\extra\httpd-autoindex.conf’ and comment out Alias /icons/ "C:/xampp/apache/icons/".

Disable ‘/server-status’ page. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\extra\httpd-info.conf’ and comment out entire <Location /server-status> element.

Disable HTTP TRACE method. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\httpd.conf’, navigate to Supplemental configuration section and add new configuration TraceEnable Off.

Prevent clickjacking attacks. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\httpd.conf’, navigate to Supplemental configuration section and add new configuration Header set X-Frame-Options deny.

Set Content Security Policy HTTP response header. The following configuration will only allow you to load resources from your own domain. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\httpd.conf’, navigate to Supplemental configuration section and add new configuration Header set Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self';". Search the Internet for more Content Security Policy options.

Block MIME sniffing. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\httpd.conf’, navigate to Supplemental configuration section and add new configuration Header set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff.

Enforce cross-site scripting filter. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\httpd.conf’, navigate to Supplemental configuration section and add new configuration Header set X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block".

Mitigate Slow Loris and other DoS attacks. From your Apache directory go to ‘\conf\extra\httpd-default.conf’ and lower Timeout to 60.

PHP Hardening

Prevent version disclosure. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set expose_php to Off.

Prevent display errors information disclosure. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set both display_errors and display_startup_errors to Off.

Set the correct server’s timezone. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set both instances of date.timezone to your timezone. Search the web for a list of supported timezones in PHP.

Set the session cookie’s name. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set session.name to your own desired value. In addition to this website, it is also set here.

Set the session cookie’s lifetime. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set session.cookie_lifetime to your own desired value. In addition to this website, it is also set here.

Set the session cookie’s HttpOnly flag. The following configuration will not allow client side scripts to access the session cookie. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set session.cookie_httponly to 1. In addition to this website, it is also set here.

Use strict session mode. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set session.use_strict_mode to 1.

Disable file uploads. Do the following only if your website does not utilize file uploads. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set file_uploads to Off.

Prevent remote file inclusion. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set allow_url_fopen to Off.

Disable dangerous PHP functions. From your PHP directory go to ‘php.ini’ and set disable_functions to eval;exec;shell_exec;curl_exec;passthru;system;proc_open;popen. Search the Internet for additional dangerous PHP functions.

SSL/TLS Certificate

Find out how to create an SSL/TLS certificate here.

Download & Use

Copyright (c) 2020 Ivan Šincek