is a security feature implemented by modern web browsers to help protect websites from various types of attacks, particularly cross-site scripting (XSS), data injection, and other code injection attacks. CSP acts as a whitelist of allowed content sources, specifying what resources the browser is permitted to load and execute, such as JavaScript, CSS, images, fonts, and iframes.
Purpose of CSP:
- Prevent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): One of the primary goals of CSP is to reduce the risk of XSS attacks by ensuring that only trusted scripts can be executed on the website. Without CSP, malicious scripts injected into a website can run with the same permissions as trusted ones, posing a significant security risk.
- Control Resource Loading: CSP helps control which sources are allowed to serve different types of content (scripts, styles, images, etc.). It allows developers to specify which domains the browser is allowed to fetch content from, reducing the risk of loading malicious resources.
- Mitigate Code Injection Attacks: By defining strict rules about the execution of inline scripts or styles and disallowing unknown sources, CSP mitigates the impact of code injection vulnerabilities, thereby helping to ensure that unauthorized or harmful code does not run on the page.
- Reporting Security Violations: CSP can be configured to report violations when a blocked resource is attempted to be loaded or executed. This feature is useful for monitoring potential security issues on a site and detecting malicious activity.
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