How to secure sessions against session hijacking attacks

Task

Configure the Session Manager to help mitigate session hijacking attacks.

Solution

If you haven't already done so, add the session manager factory to your application via a module config or config/autoload file.

In the same file (or another file if you prefer), add the session_manager key and insert the session validators you wish to load. In this case we'll use both RemoteAddr and HttpUserAgent:

return [
    'service_manager' => [
        'factories' => [
            'Laminas\Session\ManagerInterface' => 'Laminas\Session\Service\SessionManagerFactory',
        ],
    ],
    'session_manager' => [
        'validators' => [
            'Laminas\Session\Validator\RemoteAddr',
            'Laminas\Session\Validator\HttpUserAgent',
        ]
    ],
];

Alternatively, you could use an external module such as HtSession instead of a manual configuration.

NOTE: This does not really secure your session against hijacking attacks unless it's 1994. Please use HTTPS, secure cookies, HTTP only cookies, CSRF protection, credential re-entry and session regeneration to make sure your sessions are secure.

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