17 Node.Js Security Best Practices For Securing Your Node.Js App

NodeJS Logging is an essential aspect of Node.Js security. Picture this: you've spent time crafting a secure Node.js application without proper logging, how do you know if your efforts are paying off? Understand the role of NodeJS logging in maintaining the security of your applications and provide valuable insights into ensuring the best practices to keep your applications secure.

Alerty's NodeJS logging enhances the security of your NodeJS application by enabling you to track every step. This solution amplifies your security measures, making it a must-have for ensuring the best practices for securing your Node.js applications.

Table of Contents

• What Is Node.Js?
• Understanding Node.Js Security
• Risks Of Node.Js Vulnerabilities: Why You Need To Secure Node.Js
• Top 8 Node.Js Security Risks
• 17 Node.Js Security Best Practices
• 7 Top Tools To Enhance Node.Js Security
• Catch Issues Before They Affect Your Users with Alerty's NodeJS Logging Tool

What Is Node.Js?

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment and library for running web applications outside the client's browser. Created by Ryan Dahl in 2009 and most recently updated to version 15.14 in April 2021, Node.js is a game-changer for developers. 

By allowing JavaScript execution on the server side, Node.js streamlines web development, enabling the creation of server-side web applications. This runtime environment is ideal for data-intensive applications thanks to its asynchronous, event-driven model.

Architecture and Event Loop

The V8 JavaScript engine powers Node.js, which Chrome builds to efficiently compile JavaScript into machine code. Node.js uses an event loop to handle multiple concurrent operations without blocking on a single-threaded event-driven model. 

• When a client sends a request to a Node.js server, the request is added to an event queue. 
• Continuously checking this queue, the event loop processes each request. 
• If a request involves an I/O operation, Node.js offloads it to the kernel, which asynchronously handles the operation. 
• Once the I/O operation completes, the kernel notifies Node.js, executing the corresponding callback function.

Scalable Network Applications

This non-blocking I/O and event-driven model allows Node.js to manage numerous simultaneous connections efficiently. This factor makes it an ideal platform for developing scalable, high-performance network applications. It became popular among developers worldwide because of its:

• Ease of use
• Scalability
• Performance

Related Reading

• NodeJS Performance
• Node Js Error Handling
• Node Problem Detector

Understanding Node.Js Security

Node.js is a secure platform, but many third-party open-source packages in the ecosystem may not be. These packages are used through the Node Package Manager (NPM) and are susceptible to many vulnerabilities and other Node.js licensing and security risks. Some Node.js code bases have thousands of these packages, opening up the housed applications to many risks.

The Security Challenge

NPM is one of the largest open-source package ecosystems. Open-source technologies can be of major concern when it comes to cybersecurity. According to the Snyk State of Open Source Security report, an average Node.js project has 49 vulnerabilities out of 79 direct dependencies. 

That concerning statistic underscores how important it is to protect your Node.js application. In addition, a developer on GitHub ran a security experiment where they could gain access to 14% of NPM packages, with another 54% potentially reachable through dependency chains.

Beyond Basic NPM Security Best Practices

This demonstrates that Node.js needs to be more secure for developers to close the book on potential exposure to hackers. In addition to these ten NPM security best practices, we recommend the additional practices outlined below to ensure the security of applications built on Node.js.

Alerty: NodeJS Logging for Enhanced Security

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

• Application performance monitoring
• Database monitoring
• Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

• Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
• Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
• It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
• Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring.  

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's NodeJS logging tool today!

Risks Of Node.Js Vulnerabilities: Why You Need To Secure Node.Js

While powerful, Node.js comes with its own set of vulnerabilities that can lead to significant risks if not properly managed. The 2022 IBM security report highlighted a notable rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the importance of securing applications. Data breaches are particularly costly, with the global average total cost reaching $4.24 million and $9.44 million in the U.S. alone.

The High Cost of Data Breaches

Companies experiencing data breaches can underperform in the market by over 15% after three years due to reputational damage and increased customer churn. Downtime can be costly, costing small businesses up to $427 per minute and medium to large businesses up to $9,000 per minute. These statistics emphasize the critical need for robust security measures in Node.js applications to avoid such detrimental impacts. 

Protecting Your Reputation Through Node.js Security

A security incident can seriously damage your reputation and erode trust in your service. Customers and users expect their data to be handled securely and your application to work as intended. A breach can lead to a loss of trust, but you show your commitment to quality by prioritizing security.

Related Reading

• NodeJS Profiling
• NodeJS Metrics
• Node Js Performance Testing
• NodeJS Server Monitoring

Top 8 Node.Js Security Risks

1. Brute-Force Attacks

Brute force attacks are among the most recurrent attacks or risks in any Node.js security checklist. Attackers generate random passwords and try to implement them on login endpoints of web applications to access critical information. 

To prevent brute-force attacks, you will need to:

• Strengthen your authentication mechanism for Node.js applications. 
• Limit the number of login attempts from one IP to deal with such risky situations
• Utilize bcrypt.js to safeguard the passwords stored in the database

2. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attack

Cross-site scripting attacks are vital threats you need to deal with while working on Node.js web application development. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) enables attackers to inject client-side scripting involving tweaked JavaScript code to the web app caused by missing input validation of hostnames returned by Domain Name Servers.

3. Cross-Site Resource Forgery (CSRF)

CSRF is a form of session hijacking in which users are forced to run malicious actions on an application they’re currently authenticated to. In a CSRF attack, attackers hijack real users' sessions, bypassing non-user security rules. The primary aim of CSRF attackers is to change the application's state by using social engineering techniques like sending messages or emails to the users.

4. Exploited and Malicious Packages

Multiple supply chain compromises involved packages hosted on Node Package Manager (NPM), the package manager for the Node.js JavaScript platform. By compromising a popular package developers use, it is easy to amplify the distribution of malicious code directly to victims themselves at scale.

5. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)

The DDoS attack is the most commercialized form of cybercrime globally. Ordering such an attack via the Dark Web and paying according to its desired intensity and duration is possible. As a result, the attacked server sticks in hordes of false requests, so much so the real ones can’t reach their destinations.

6. Regular Expression Denial of Service (REDoS) attacks

The REDoS attacks are an advanced and much smarter way to overload your servers than the usual DDoS. The desired effect is achieved via adding regular expressions that require complex computations that resemble usual requests to the server.

7. Cookie Poisoning

This is an entire family of attacks united under the flag of manipulating users’ cookies. In some circumstances, it is possible to scan and then modify the end user’s cookies to achieve different malicious results sessions such as:

• Hijacking
• Spoofing
• Fixation and etc.

8. X-Powered-By Header

Using a non-standard HTTP response header helps attackers access sensitive information, such as the tech stack used within the application. The developer could easily disable the X-Powered-By header when configuring the server.

17 Node.Js Security Best Practices

1. Keep Your NPM Libraries Up To Date

NPM libraries make it easier and quicker to build a full-featured Node.js backend. At the same time, they can introduce security risks to your application. New vulnerabilities are always discovered, and the maintainers must address them and release an updated package version. 

Here is why you should keep your dependencies up to date. 

• To ensure the security of the NPM libraries you rely on, you can use npm audit and snack. 
• These tools analyze your project’s dependencies tree and provide insights into any known vulnerabilities.

2. Avoid Using Default Cookie Names

The cookie names used by your Node.js application can unintentionally reveal the technology stack your backend is based on. You should always obscure that valuable information, as attackers can use it against you. 

By knowing your framework, they can exploit specific weaknesses associated with it. In detail, attackers tend to focus on the name of the session cookie. Protect your app from that by setting a custom session cookie name with the express-session middleware:

const express = require('express');

const session = require('express-session');

const app = express();

app.use(session({

  // set a custom name for the session cookie

  name: 'myCustomCookieName', 

  // a secure secret key for session encryption

  secret: 'mySecretKey', 

}));

3. Set the Security HTTP Headers

The default HTTP headers in Express could be more secure. Some headers contain information that should not be publicly exposed, such as X-Powered-By. Others are missing and should be added to deal with security-related aspects, including preventing cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

This library sets the most important security headers based on the recommendations from Security Headers. Use it as follows:

const express = require('express');

const helmet = require('helmet');

const app = express();

// register the helmet middleware

// to set the security headers

app.use(helmet());

The helmet() middleware automatically removes unsafe headers and adds new ones, including X-XSS-Protection, X-Content-Type-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, and X-Frame-Options. These enforce best practices and help protect your application from common attacks.

4. Implement Rate Limiting

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) and brute force are two of the most common web attacks. To mitigate them, you can implement rate limiting. This technique involves controlling the incoming traffic to your Node.js backend, preventing malicious hackers from overwhelming your server with too many requests.

The easiest way to implement rate limiting is through the rate-limiter-flexible library. This dependency provides a configurable middleware to restrict the number of requests coming from the same IP address or user within a specified time frame.

Here is an example of how to use it to apply rate limiting in Node.js:

const express = require('express');

const { RateLimiterMemory } = require('rate-limiter-flexible');

const app = express();

const rateLimiter = new RateLimiterMemory({

  points: 10, // maximum number of requests allowed

  duration: 1, // time frame in seconds

});

const rateLimiterMiddleware = (req, res, next) => {

   rateLimiter.consume(req.ip)

      .then(() => {

          // request allowed, 

          // proceed with handling the request

          next();

      })

      .catch(() => {

          // request limit exceeded, 

          // respond with an appropriate error message

          res.status(429).send('Too Many Requests');

      });

   };

app.use(rateLimiterMiddleware);

A rate limiter instance allowing a maximum of 10 requests in 1 second is initialized. Then, it is used in a custom middleware to analyze the IP of the incoming request. If the rate limit is not exceeded, the request proceeds. Otherwise, the request gets blocked and the server returns a 429 Too Many Requests response.

5. Ensure Strong Authentication Policies

You need to enforce strong authentication policies to protect your Node.js application against attacks that exploit user authentication. 

• Invite users to set strong passwords.
• Support Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On(SSO). 
• MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide multiple forms of authentication, while SSO simplifies the authentication process and reduces the risk of weak or reused passwords.

When it comes to hashing passwords for storage, prefer strong cryptographic functions like bcrypt over the methods offered by the Node.js crypto library. That package provides a secure password-hashing algorithm that makes it significantly harder for attackers to crack passwords. Mitigate brute-force attacks by restricting the number of failed login attempts through rate limiting.

6. Server-side Logging and Monitoring

Using a good logging library would give the developer more robust features to troubleshoot and monitor activities. On the other hand, logging unwanted or too many logs can impact the application’s performance and utilize more resources. Therefore, we should only use a reasonable logging level when deploying the application in a production environment.

Clear and Structured Log Message

Formatting the log messages is essential to making them easy for humans and machines to read and understand. Logging vague messages will lead to misunderstandings among developers.

It is important to ensure that the logging mechanism captures all relevant information, including the following:

• IP address
• Username
• Actions performed, and etc.

Capturing or storing sensitive information within the application logs is not recommended. It violates major application compliance requirements such as PCI, GDPR, etc. There can be scenarios where we need to log such information. In such cases, it is recommended to mask the sensitive information before it is collected and written into the logs.

7. Prevent Data Leaks

Data leaks pose a significant risk in web development, and Node.js applications are no exception. In Node.js, it’s common to transmit a substantial amount of data related to an object from the back-end to the front-end. This process often involves sending more information than what is eventually displayed to the user. While this approach can be convenient for development, it inadvertently creates opportunities for data exposure.

The Risk of Exposing Sensitive Data Through Excessive Information

Hackers are adept at uncovering hidden data that the back end transmits. They can exploit this excess data to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. To mitigate this risk, adopting a minimal data strategy is crucial. This means that your application should only send the necessary information to the front end. 

For instance, in a user profile context, limit the transmitted data to essentials like the first and last names and exclude any sensitive details that aren’t required for the specific functionality.

Minimizing Data Transmission Through Regular Audits

Implementing this practice requires carefully reviewing your application's data to the front end. Regularly auditing this data flow can help identify and eliminate potential areas where unnecessary data is transmitted.

By sending only what is needed, you significantly reduce the risk of data leaks, protecting your users’ privacy and your application’s security.

8. Leverage Security Linters for Proactive Protection

Node.js offers powerful tools for proactively identifying and addressing security vulnerabilities. One key advantage is its ability to automatically scan for security weaknesses. It enables developers to catch potential security issues right at the source—during the code-writing process.

Linters for Proactive Security

To harness this capability effectively, developers can integrate specialized linter plugins into their development environment. A linter is a tool that analyzes code for potential errors, stylistic issues, and security vulnerabilities. For Node.js, plugins like eslint-plugin-security are particularly valuable. They are designed to detect and alert developers about insecure coding practices as they write the code.

Early Security Detection

With security linters, developers can significantly reduce the risk of introducing security flaws into the application. These tools provide immediate feedback, allowing for swift correction of any issues. This streamlines the development process and ensures that the codebase remains robust and secure from the ground up.

9. Implement Access Control

Another Node.js security issue concerns user permissions to various URLs or areas. For example, if you have limited app areas like the admin dashboard that users can access without role, you have access exposure.

The most common solution for this security issue is manually testing app modules that require special user permissions. Middle and access control rules work better on the server side because they reduce the room for manipulating access permissions from the client side. Log access control and API rate restriction must be set up to alert the admin of possible attacks. 

10. Regular Vulnerability Scanning in Node.js Applications

One of Node.js's greatest strengths is its expansive ecosystem, with its vast array of libraries and modules. This complexity can also introduce security risks. Each library or module added to your application potentially brings its own set of vulnerabilities. This is where the importance of regular and automated vulnerability scanning comes into play.

To safeguard your Node.js applications, your development team needs to implement a routine process for scanning and identifying vulnerabilities. Automated vulnerability scanners are designed to analyze your application’s dependencies and detect known security issues. These tools pinpoint the vulnerabilities and often provide insights or recommendations on how to address them.

By regularly conducting these scans, you can avoid potential security threats. It ensures that any new dependencies added to your project are vetted for security risks.

11. Pipelines for Security Patches

Another Node.js risk is security misconfiguration. This vulnerability exploits several parts of the app stack, such as:

• App containers
• Database
• Server, etc.

Weak pipelines are usually the main reason for this issue, exposing the app to losing security standards. From development to staging to production, keeping each environment equal with various credentials and access levels is necessary. 

12. Secure Your Stored Passwords With Encryption

A simple storing of your actual login:password pairs in the database is a very bad idea. The first crook retrieved information from your database will find and identify them during the very start of the analysis. In this case, no matter how intense the passwords were, all the accounts will be compromised.

Of course, using reversible algorithms to encrypt your passwords before entering them into the database is a reliable protection measure when equally reliable encryption methods are used.

13. Limit the Number of Login Attempts Per User Per Unit of Time

A brute-force attack cannot be performed with a limited number of login attempts per unit of time. Hackers must explore a huge number of options during the allotted time. For real end users, there is absolutely no need for hundreds of login attempts per minute. Such behavior is a clear sign of attack, so a reasonable limitation is very helpful here.

14. Do Not Install Questionable Packages

As we said above, many abandoned packages within the Node.js NPM ecosystem exist. On top of that, many other shady packages, even those relatively new or fresh-sounding, can be potentially quite harmful.

Always think twice before installing third-party packages. Read user reviews, use checking tools, and always opt for something less risky if you have an alternative.

15. Always Validate Input and Output Data

Most of the risk described above is tied to a lack of proper input and output data validation. In other words, with proper validation, there will be much fewer security risks, including:

• Code injections
• Cross-site scripting
• REDoS
• Other attacks

Validation should be implemented at both syntactic and semantic levels. Syntactic validation stands for correct syntax checking, whereas semantic validation checks the correctness of the values put into the input fields. You can learn more about input validation here.

16. Run Node.js as a Non-root User

This is a good practice across the board, but particularly in Node.js, it’s important not to run it as a root user. By running Node.js as a non-root user, you limit the potential attack surface that malicious actors can exploit.

This recommendation follows the principle of least privilege — only give users the exact amount of access they need to do their job. Root access should only be granted in very specific situations.

17. Monitor Your Backend

Your production backend may be under attack, and you may not even be aware of it. This is why it is essential to monitor your NodConnecting it to an Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tool, which lets you keep track of it to identify security issues and ensure its overall health.

Fortunately, several APM libraries and services, including Alerty, are available for Node.js. These provide information on various application aspects, including performance, error rates, resource usage, and security-related metrics. Alerty features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize the user experience.

7 Top Tools To Enhance Node.Js Security

1. Alerty

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

• Application performance monitoring
• Database monitoring
• Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

• Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
• Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
• It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
• Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring.

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's NodeJS logging tool today!

2. Node.js API Inspector

The Node.js API inspector tool is a useful debugging solution using the Blink rendering engine’s developer tools. For installing the inspector, use the next code:
$ npm install -g node-inspector

3. XSS-Filters

This NPM package validates the output to prevent XSS scripting attacks. Using this tool, you can apply context-sensitive output filters and auto-check the output for HTML5 specification compliance.

4. Bunyan or Winston Logging Options

Bunyan and Winston are logging libraries. Both provide flexible logging options. For Winston, there is an impressive list of what they call transports — storage devices for your logs. Bunyan, in turn, uses a JSON format and builds logs in the form of JSON.stringify strings.

5. Toobusy-js Module

The core feature of toobusy-js is to remove native dependencies, keeping the server not too busy. This is the alternative to using the unref method. As a result, in the case of overload, the server continues to process as many requests as possible rather than crashing. Here you can also see a couple of live examples of the toobusy-js usage.

6. Event Emitter

When we speak about the browser side, we’re referencing events such as mouse clicks, hovers, finger taps for touchscreens, and any other elements of interaction. The event.js module refers to likewise events within the backend entities, controlling them in full. This module allows the creation of a special EventEmitter class that, as we said before, makes it available to efficiently control the exceptions.

7. Cloudflare

Cloudflare offers a string of products that increase security in different ways. The simplest and most famous is their DDoS protection screen. However, you can find many other tools to minimize your app’s Node.js security issues.

Catch Issues Before They Affect Your Users with Alerty's NodeJS Logging Tool

Alerty offers a comprehensive cloud monitoring service tailored specifically for developers and early-stage startups. It provides a wide array of monitoring tools and features to help users detect and resolve issues within their applications quickly and efficiently. From application performance monitoring to database monitoring and incident management, Alerty has got you covered. 

Technology Support for Modern Development

Designed with NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js in mind, Alerty supports some of the most popular technologies developers use today. By monitoring databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS, Alerty helps users keep track of key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption, enabling them to optimize their application's performance effectively. 

User-Friendly Monitoring and Performance Optimization

Ease of use is a key aspect of Alerty's design, making it quick and simple to set up and integrate with various tools. It also offers Real User Monitoring (RUM) to help developers enhance user experience by identifying and addressing performance issues that affect end users. 

Efficient Incident Management and Universal Service Monitoring

Alerty features quick incident management capabilities and universal service monitoring that covers a wide range of dependencies, including but not limited to:

• Stripe API
• OpenAI
• Vercel

It leverages AI to simplify the setup process, providing users with a cost-effective solution compared to other monitoring services in the market. 

AI-Powered Cost-Effective Solution for Developers and Small Teams

By integrating with tools like Sentry, Alerty ensures seamless collaboration and efficient incident resolution, making it an ideal choice for developers and small teams looking for a reliable and affordable monitoring solution. 

Don't wait until issues affect your users – leverage the power of Alerty's NodeJS logging tool today and stay one step ahead of potential problems.

Related Reading

• Datadog NodeJS
• Node PM2
• Prometheus NodeJS
• Clinic.Js
• Node.Js Monitoring
• Kubernetes Node Status
• Node.js Application Monitoring
  
• Node Logs
• Node Monitor
  
• Node Performance
• Node Throw Error
• Node Observability
  
• Node Errors
• Node JS Performance Monitoring