Anti-Forgery Tokens
Anti-forgery tokens are a security mechanism used in web applications to prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. They involve generating unique, unpredictable tokens that are validated on the server side to ensure that requests originate from legitimate user sessions. This helps protect against malicious actors tricking users into submitting unauthorized requests.
Developers should implement anti-forgery tokens in any web application that handles state-changing operations, such as form submissions, API calls, or actions that modify data. This is critical for security in frameworks like ASP.NET, Django, or Ruby on Rails, where CSRF vulnerabilities can lead to data breaches or unauthorized actions. It's especially important in applications with user authentication and sensitive operations like financial transactions or account updates.