How to Secure Node.JS Application from Online Threats

Node.js, one of the leading JavaScript runtime is capturing market share gradually. When anything becomes popular in technologies, they are exposed to millions of professional including security expert, attacker, hacker, etc.

A node.js core is secure but when you install third-party packages, the way you configure, install and deploy may require additional security to protect web applications from the hacker.

Just to get an idea, 83% of Snyk users found one or more vulnerabilities in their application. Snyk is one of the popular node.js security scanning platforms.

And another latest research shows ~14% of whole npm ecosystem was affected.

In my previous article, I mentioned how to find security vulnerabilities in a Node.js application, and many of you asked about remediating/securing them.

So here you go…

1. Sqreen

Get it started in less than 5 minutes, Sqreen is deployed within your code to protect your application and users from intrusions, attacker.

Sqreen is lightweight agent built for performance to provide complete security including the following.

• SQL/No-SQL/Code/Command injections
• Owasp Top 10
• Cross-site scripting attacks
• Zero-day attacks

Not just Node.js but it supports Python, Ruby, PHP as well.

Sqreen uses collective intelligence to detect an early attack by taking advantage of data coming from other applications.

2. Snyk

Snyk can be integrated into GitHub, Jenkins, Circle CI, Tarvis, Code Ship, Bamboo to find and fixes the known vulnerabilities.

You can gain visibility of your application dependencies and monitor real-time alerts when risk is found in your code.

On high-level, Snyk provides complete security protection including the following.

• Finding vulnerabilities in the code
• Monitor code in real-time
• Fix the vulnerable dependencies
• Get notified when new weakness impact your application
• Collaborate with your team members

Snyk maintains their own vulnerabilities database, and currently, it supports Node.js, Ruby, Scala, and Python.

3. Templarbit

Templarbit support integration with Node.js, Django, Ruby on rails, Nginx to protect an application from malicious activities.

It mainly focuses on protecting from XSS attacks by using content security policy.

4. Cloudflare WAF

Cloudflare WAF (Web Application Firewall) protect your web applications from the cloud (network edge). You don’t have to install anything in your node application.

There are three types of WAF rules you get.

• OWASP – to protect application from OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities
• Custom rules – you can define the rule
• Cloudflare specials – Rules defined by cloudflare based on application.

By utilizing Cloudflare, you just don’t add security to your site but also take advantages of their high-speed CDN for better content delivery.

Cloudflare WAF is available in Pro plan which cost $20 per month.

Another cloud-based security provider option would be SUCURI, a complete site security solution to protect from DDoS, malware, known vulnerabilities, etc.

5. Jscrambler

Jscrambler takes an interesting, unique approach to provide code & web page integrity on the client side.

Jscrambler makes your web application self-defensive to fight with fraud, avoid code modification in run-time, data leakage and protect from reputational loss and business.

Another exciting feature is application logic and data is transformed in such a way that it’s hard to understand and hidden on the client side. This makes it difficult to guess the algorithm, technologies used in the application.

Some of the Jscambler featured include the following.

• Real-time detection, notification & protection
• Protection from code-injection, DOM-tampering, man-in-the browser, bots, zero-day attacks
• Credential, credit card, private data loss prevention
• Malware injection prevention

So go ahead and give a try to make your JavaScript application bullet-proof.

6. Lusca

Lusca is a security module for express to provide OWASP best practices secure header.

Another option would be Helmet to implement headers like CSP, HPKP, HSTS, NoSniff, XSS, DNS Prefetch, etc.

7.  Immunio

A real-time security protection for node.js, Java, Python and Rails platform. Immunio is a runtime application self-protection (RASP) solution to identify and protection from unacceptable and vulnerable traffic.

Some of the key features are:

• Block bots, spammer, hacker, attacker
• Secure web application assets
• Real-time visibility & report
• Protection against OWASP runtime threats
• No source code changes needed

Immunio is an agent-based software which can be installed on your server. You can get it started in less than 5 minutes.

I hope above list of Node.js security protection solution help you to secure your web application. Most of the listed offer FREE trial so give a try to see what works for you.