Maximizing Security for Your App with NGINX

January 1, 2023

NGINX is a suburb and popular choice as your web server. NGINX is a powerful web server that can help improve performance and security for your app. This article aims to help you understand the basics of implementing best practices with NGINX that can help maximize security and protect your app and your users.

Enable HTTPS

This one is thankfully rather obvious now-a-days, but it is still of the most important security measures you can take. This ensures that data transmitted between your server and your users' devices is encrypted, protecting against man-in-the-middle attacks and other threats. You can use the following NGINX config to enable HTTPS:

    server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        server_name example.com;
        ssl_certificate /path/to/ssl/certificate.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /path/to/ssl/certificate.key;
        ...
    }

Use a security header module

NGINX has a security header module that allows you to easily add security-related headers to your website. These headers can help protect against cross-site scripting attacks, clickjacking, and other threats. You can use the following NGINX config to add security headers:

    location / {
        ...
        add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
        add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
        add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";
        ...
    }

Implement rate limiting

Rate limiting helps protect against brute force attacks and other types of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks by limiting the number of requests a user can make in a given time period. NGINX allows you to easily implement rate limiting for your app. You can use the following NGINX config to implement rate limiting:

    location / {
        ...
        limit_req zone=one burst=5 nodelay;
        ...
    }