Security

Ensuring the security of your application is paramount. This document outlines the security measures implemented in this project, including authentication, authorization, encryption, hashing, and various HTTP security headers.

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• Authentication
• Authorization
• Encryption and Hashing
  • Hashing
• Helmet
• CORS
• Rate limiting

Authentication

Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user or system. This project uses JSON Web Tokens (JWT) for stateless authentication. Users are required to log in with their credentials, after which they receive a token that must be included in the header of subsequent requests.

Authorization

Authorization is the process of determining if a user has permission to perform a certain action or access a specific resource. This project implements role-based access control (RBAC) to manage user permissions. Each user is assigned one or more roles, and each role is associated with a set of permissions.

Encryption and Hashing

Hashing

For hashing, we use the argon2 package, which is currently considered one of the most secure hashing algorithms. It is used primarily for hashing passwords before they are stored in the database. Here's a basic example of how to hash a password with argon2:

import argon2 from 'argon2';

export const hashPassword = async (password: string): Promise<string> => {
  try {
    return await argon2.hash(password);
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
    throw new Error('Can not hash password.');
  }
};

Helmet

Helmet helps secure your NestJS apps by setting various HTTP headers. It's not a silver bullet, but it can help prevent some well-known web vulnerabilities by setting headers like X-Frame-Options, X-XSS-Protection, and Strict-Transport-Security. Simply add it to your NestJS app with minimal configuration:

...
import helmet from 'helmet';

async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule, {
    bufferLogs: true,
  });

  app.use(helmet());
  ...
}

CORS

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is a security feature that restricts how resources on a web page can be requested from another domain outside the domain from which the first resource was served. In NestJS, you can enable CORS with the enableCors method. Here's an example of how to enable CORS with a specific origin:

...
import helmet from 'helmet';

async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule, {
    bufferLogs: true,
  });

  const corsOrigin = configService.getOrThrow('app.corsOrigin', {
    infer: true,
  });

  app.enableCors({
    origin: corsOrigin,
    methods: 'GET,HEAD,PUT,PATCH,POST,DELETE',
    allowedHeaders: 'Content-Type, Accept',
    credentials: true,
  });

  console.log('\nCORS Origin:', corsOrigin);
  ...
}

Please note that enabling CORS with a wildcard (*) is not recommended for production environments, as it can expose your application to security vulnerabilities.

You need to set the APP_CORS_ORIGIN environment variable to the domain you want to allow requests from. For example, if you want to allow requests from https://example.com, you would set APP_CORS_ORIGIN to https://example.com.

APP_CORS_ORIGIN=https://example.com

Rate limiting

Rate limiting is crucial for preventing abuse and ensuring that your service remains available to all users. Implement rate limiting using the express-rate-limit middleware:

...

By implementing these security measures, you can significantly increase the security and resilience of your application against common web threats.