CSRF Protection in Symfony: Secure Your Forms & APIs Like a Pro

Ensure your Symfony application is protected against CSRF attacks with these simple yet effective techniques.

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In the modern web, security is a top priority. One of the most common security vulnerabilities is Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). If your Symfony application doesn’t have CSRF protection, attackers could trick users into making unintended requests, potentially leading to data leaks, account takeovers, or malicious actions performed on behalf of the user.

In this blog, we’ll dive deep into CSRF, understand its impact, and explore different ways to implement CSRF protection in Symfony.

What is CSRF and Why Should You Care?

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) is an attack where an attacker tricks an authenticated user into executing an unwanted action on a web application. This often happens when a user is logged in to a site and unknowingly clicks on a malicious link, submits a form, or loads an image that triggers an unintended request.

For example, imagine you are logged into your bank account, and an attacker sends you a phishing email containing an image tag like this:

<img src="https://yourbank.com/transfer?amount=1000&to=attacker" />