Secure Your Node.js Web Application

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

Confucius

Chapter 10Defend Against Denial-of-Service Attacks

In the previous chapter, we set up proper authentication and access control mechanisms for our web application. Now it’s time to add features and flesh out our application, but we want to do it securely. We don’t want to be the proverbial baby holding candy for the attackers.

In this chapter we examine one of the more common and simple attack methods that exists in the wild today: denial-of-service attacks. Let’s go over what exactly constitutes a DoS attack, and then you’ll learn how to identify and avoid anti-patterns such as asymmetry, synchronous code, and poor memory management. By the end of this chapter ...