Is Laravel Secure?

When you create a new website or web application, you want to believe that the technology you are using offers a staunch defence against cyber criminals.

The threat to British businesses, as to organisations worldwide, should not be underestimated. Research suggests cybercrime costs UK firms £ 27 billion a year. That number, enormous though it is, does not begin to describe the impact on the people whose lives and businesses are devastated by hackers. 

No digital technology could ever claim to be 100% secure. However, it is immensely reassuring in this context to know that Laravel has extensive security measures in place to assist businesses that use the platform.

Laravel Security Practices

You can enjoy significantly enhanced peace of mind when you consider that the Laravel platform has several practices designed to ensure the security of businesses and developers. 

It’s also reassuring that if you discover a loophole in the Laravel security system and report it, the Laravel maintenance team swoops into action to address the issue.

Laravel Authentication System

In most instances, when a website is hacked, its owners find that their site pages divert visitors to alternative sites set up by cybercriminals. But Laravel has a user authentication process in place – which is guarded by “providers” and “guards”.

Each time a user makes a request, the guard checks that they are authentic. Providers, meanwhile, make it possible to retrieve genuine users from the database.

It’s a robust process, and all your development team needs to do is set up the database, controllers and models – simply by doing this, you are building authentication features into your app.

Laravel CSRF Protection

Hackers sometimes try to generate fake requests to enter a system. However, Laravel can compare a request token with one saved from a session by the same supposed user. If they don’t match, the request is ruled invalid.

Protection against XSS

Cross-site scripting occurs when, during a cyber attack, text is inserted into your website. However, Laravel has native support to protect your code from such attacks. This is a feature that is automatically triggered and protects your database.

Defence Against SQL Injection

Cyber criminals occasionally use structured query language (SQL) injections to modify to their advantage the intent of SQL queries. But Laravel uses a binding tool that protects its users from such injections.

Enhanced Security Features

As well as the protective systems built into Laravel, there are other features that you or your dev team can use to bolster your online security. These include coding features that add to your protection against XSS, and deploying your web applications on HTTPS rather than HTTP. It is also worth checking out the Laravel Purifier to keep your code tidy.

Laravel Security Packages

There are several security packages available from Laravel that can add significantly to your peace of mind. The most popular are as follows:

• Laravel Security Component

• Laravel Security

• Laravel-ACL
  

At Steadfast Collective, we work with Laravel on a daily basis. Our engineering team are certified Laravel developers. Our extensive experience with the platform means we are familiar with all the security measures, in-built and supplementary, that can give you extra protection and peace of mind. 

When you want a partner to help with your web application requirements in a secure environment, please get in touch.