Posted by Ujwol Shrestha in CA Security on April 1 2016 2:42:50 PM
Posted by Ujwol Shrestha - Principal Support Engineer in CA Security on April 1 2016
Questions
- What is X-Frame-Options response header? What is the implication of setting it ?
- What are the different options for X-Frame-Options response header?
- What are the other considerations ?
- Does Single Sign-On Web Agent have support for X-Frame-Options response header?
Answers
The X-Frame-Options HTTP response header can be used to indicate whether or not a browser should be allowed to render a page in a <frame> or <iframe>. Sites can use this to avoid Clickjacking attacks, by ensuring that their content is not embedded into other sites.
X-Frame-Options Header Types
There are three possible values for the X-Frame-Options header:
- DENY, which prevents any domain from framing the content. The "DENY" setting is recommended unless a specific need has been identified for framing.
- SAMEORIGIN, which only allows the current site to frame the content.
- ALLOW-FROM uri, which permits the specified 'uri' to frame this page. (e.g., ALLOW-FROM http://www.example.com)
Browser Support
The following browsers support X-Frame-Options headers.
Note :
- X-Frame-Options Deprecated While the X-Frame-Options header is supported by the major browsers, it was never standardized and has been deprecated in favour of the frame-ancestors directive from the CSP Level 2 specification.
Single Sign-on Web Agent support for X-Frame-Options
Single Sign-on Web Agent r12.5 (as of CR5) does not have support for XFrameOptions ACO Parameter.
It also drops the X-Frame-Options header even if the header is set from the Web Server directly.
For e.g To configure Apache to send the X-Frame-Options header for all pages, you will add following configuration to your site's configuration (httpd.conf):
Header always append X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN
However, even when you have this, if the WebSite is protected by SiteMinder web agent, it drops this header from reaching to the client/browser.
In other words, Single Sign-on Web Agent doesn't honor the web-server setting for X-Frame-Options.
Single Sign-on Web Agent r12.51 CR4 and above does have support for XFrameOptions ACO Parameter.
The options for the XFrameOptions parameter are the same as the values for the X-Frame-Options response header:
Options: DENY, SAMEORIGIN, ALLOW-FROM uri
r12.51 CR4 and above Web Agent, also do honor this header if it is being set by the WebServer itself and let the header pass to the client/browser.
References
Clickjacking Defense Cheat Sheet - OWASP
The X-Frame-Options response header - HTTP | MDN
Help Prevent Attacks - CA Single Sign-On - 12.52 SP1 - CA Technologies Documentation