AppSec California 2020

The best way to enable developers to create secure applications is to “shift left” in security. That means providing developers with the tools and techniques that help build more secure applications from the get-go. Developers may get security controls into their applications in different ways. They may write them from scratch following security training or guidance, they may use open source libraries, or they may use frameworks that have the security features built in already. In this talk we explore JavaScript applications that use different types of security controls implemented at levels ranging from developer code, to libraries and plugins, to different frameworks, and analyze which applications actually turn out to be more secure. This work is based on analysis of over 500 open source JavaScript applications on GitHub that use client-side frameworks and template engines to prevent XSS, as well as server-side frameworks (Express, Koa, Hapi, Sails, Meteor) and CSRF prevention mechanisms.
In conclusion, we provide data-driven recommendations for framework maintainers and application developers on how to develop and choose a framework that will actually make applications more secure.