Stephen Rees-Carter

Security Tips

Security Tip: Prohibiting Destructive Commands on Production

[Tip #83] It's important to be paranoid when it comes to production environments - because if you forget you're logged into prod, you may end up dropping a database... or worse! 😱

Security Tips

Security Tip: How Strict Is your Transport Security?

[Tip #82] HTTPS is everywhere & easy, but HTTP is still an option... How do you stop an attacker intercepting and downgrading connections to your site?

Security Tips

Security Tip: Is Your Referrer Leaking Information?

[Tip #81] Do you know what information is being leaked by the Referer header when your users click on external links?

In Depth

In Depth: Using CSS Clickjacking to Steal Passwords

[In Depth #26] It's time for some nightmare fuel with a sneaky inline CSS vulnerability I found in a popular Laravel package!

Security Tips

Security Tip: Privilege Escalation Through Domain Wildcards!

[Tip #80] It's incredibly common to find hardcoded domains used for identifying admins, however this also makes it trivial to escalate privileges to admin!

Security Tips

Security Tip: Only Use env() Within Config Files

[Tip #79] It may be tempting to reach for env() outside your config files, but you may be introducing subtle bugs, or exposing your app to compromise...

Security Tips

Security Tip #78: Laravel 11's Per-Second Rate Limiting

Up until now, Laravel has only supported rate limiting per-minute, but that didn't work in some scenarios, as a minute is a very long time. To solve this, Laravel 11 supports per-second!

Security Tips

Security Tip: Laravel 11's Prompt Validation Rules

[Tip #77] We often talk about validating user input from the browser, but what about user input on the command line? Validation is just as useful there too!

Security Tips

Security Tip: Laravel 11's Automatic Password Rehashing

[Tip #76] Let's check out three of the configuration options available as part of Automatic Password Rehashing: custom fields, disabling rehashing, and changing bcrypt rounds.

In Depth

In Depth: Graceful Encryption Key Rotation

[In Depth #25] Laravel makes effective use of encryption for security purposes, but what happens if your encryption key needs to be rotated? Let's see how Laravel 11 handles it...

Security Tips

Security Tip: Laravel 11's Controller Authorisation & Validation Methods

[Tip#75] As part of the simplification of the app structure in Laravel 11, the Request Authorisation and Validation methods are no longer available on the controller - here's how you get it back.

Security Tips

Security Tip: Laravel 11's Middleware Configuration

[Tip#74] Laravel 11 shifts the default middleware into the framework itself and exposes configuration through the bootstrap/app.php class.