X-XSS-Protection

The HTTP X-XSS-Protection response header is a feature of Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari that stops pages from loading when they detect reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Although these protections are largely unnecessary in modern browsers when sites implement a strong Content-Security-Policy that disables the use of inline JavaScript ('unsafe-inline'), they can still provide protections for users of older web browsers that don't yet support CSP.

Syntax

X-XSS-Protection: 0
X-XSS-Protection: 1
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-XSS-Protection: 1; report=<reporting-uri>

0

Disables XSS filtering.

1

Enables XSS filtering (usually default in browsers). If a cross-site scripting attack is detected, the browser will sanitize the page (remove the unsafe parts).

1; mode=block

Enables XSS filtering. Rather than sanitizing the page, the browser will prevent rendering of the page if an attack is detected.

1; report=<reporting-URI>  (Chromium only)

Enables XSS filtering. If a cross-site scripting attack is detected, the browser will sanitize the page and report the violation. This uses the functionality of the CSP report-uri directive to send a report.

Example

Block pages from loading when they detect reflected XSS attacks:

X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block

PHP

header("X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block");

Apache (.htaccess)

<IfModule mod_headers.c> 
  Header set X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block" 
</IfModule>

Specifications

Not part of any specifications or drafts.

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

See also

• Content-Security-Policy
• Controlling the XSS Filter – Microsoft
• Understanding XSS Auditor – Virtue Security

• The misunderstood X-XSS-Protection – blog.innerht.ml