Responsible use of the ASP.NET MVC AntiForgeryToken


The use of anti-forgery tokens is a necessary safeguard against cross-site request forgery attacks. The ASP.NET MVC framework provides easy-to-use security mechanisms right out of the box, but unfortunately these are opt-in rather than opt-out and are easy to miss/forget. For a non-trivial website it is difficult to guarantee tokens are supplied and checked in all form submissions and AJAX posts. This is how I do it.
Note: Web security is a tricky business and I do not consider myself a security expert. Use the information in this post at your own risk.

1. Use the ValidateJsonAntiForgeryToken attribute for AJAX calls

There's a nice post by Johan Driessen on anti-XSRF validation with newer versions of the .NET framework. I use Johan's ValidateJsonAntiForgeryToken attribute to great effect. In summary, Johan's attribute should be applied to actions invoked via AJAX calls. Check out his blog post - it explains everything in detail.

2. Ensure all AJAX posts contain a verification token

In my root layout file (master page) I use the following code to set expectations for jQuery AJAX calls. Prior to executing a call, the request verification token is read from the current page (Note: a Html.AntiForgeryToken call needs to be in place in every page which will utilize ajax posts) and passed into the request header. This saves me from needing to specify a token every time I create an AJAX call. (This can easily be modified to only send the token for desired HTTP verbs)
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3. Ensure all POST methods have validation attributes applied

It's very easy to forget to apply the ValidateAntiForgeryToken attribute when developing new actions. I have a little unit test that I run to ensure that all post methods have either ValidateAntiForgeryToken or ValidateJsonAntiForgeryToken applied. The test fails and prints a list of offender actions when appropriate. This is a lifesaver when, inevitably, I'm developing some new functionality in a rush and haven't given security its appropriate consideration (hopefully this is a rarity).
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Hopefully this saves somebody some time. Let me know if there are any considerations that I have missed, or if you know of a more elegant method of achieving the same!

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