Sanitizing HTML

If you're developing an application that allows users to submit HTML, you'll want to sanitize the HTML. It's not recommended to allow user-submitted HTML, but it does come up from time to time.

Sanitizing HTML is a crucial step in web development when dealing with user-submitted content. User-submitted content might contain malicious scripts. If this content is inserted into the HTML without sanitizing, it can be executed in other users' browsers. This type of attack, known as an XSS attack, can lead to the theft of sensitive information like session cookies, personal data, and more. Maintaining Site Integrity

By ensuring that only safe and valid HTML is used, you can prevent layout disruptions or content manipulation on your site that might confuse or mislead users. Treating all user-submitted content as potentially malicious and taking steps to sanitize it before it's inserted into the database and rendered on the page, you significantly reduce the risks associated with handling user-generated content. This practice promotes a more secure and stable web application.

Installing HTML Purifier

The most popular solution for sanitizing HTML is HTML Purifier. HTML Purifier is a popular library for PHP that helps to filter and sanitize user-generated HTML content. Its purpose aligns with the need for security and cleanliness in web applications. You can find this project here: http://htmlpurifier.org/

HTML Purifier ensures that the HTML code entered by users doesn't contain malicious scripts, which helps in preventing Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. The library ensures that the HTML content adheres to the standards defined by the W3C. This leads to consistent rendering across different browsers and devices.

This library offers a wide array of configuration options. Developers can define exactly what elements, attributes, and values are allowed, making it adaptable to various use cases. HTML Purifier is designed to be easy to integrate into PHP applications. You include the library, create a purifier object, and then use it to filter user-generated content.

There are a variety of ways of installing HTML Purifier. Composer is the recommended solution.

composer require ezyang/htmlpurifier

Using HTML Purifier

Once installed, you can load HTML Purifier with Composer's autoload feature.

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

Next, you must initialize the HTMLPurifier class. The constructor accepts an object of configuration settings. If you're short on time, HTML Purifier provides a configuration object, which should be suitable for most projects. You can grab this object with the HTMLPurifier_Config::createDefault() method.

$config = HTMLPurifier_Config::createDefault();
$purifier = new HTMLPurifier($config);

After configuring the purifier, you can use it by calling the purify() method. This method accepts the HTML to cleanse.

$dirty_html = '<a href="javascript:alert(\'XSS\')">Click me!</a>';
$clean_html = $purifier->purify($dirty_html);
 
echo $clean_html; // Outputs '<a>Click me!</a>'

In the example above, the $dirty_html variable is passed into the purify() method. The result is stored in the $clean_html variable. Afterward, we echo the variable to view its content. The JavaScript code inserted into the href attribute is completely removed, which prevents an XSS attack.

Key Takeaways

• Purifying HTML is crucial to prevent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks and to maintain the integrity and consistency of your website's content.
• Libraries like HTML Purifier provide robust and customizable solutions for filtering and sanitizing HTML, ensuring adherence to standards and preventing malicious code.
• Any user-generated HTML content, like comments or posts, should always be treated as potentially malicious and be purified before rendering or storing.
• Some HTML purifying operations can be resource-intensive, so implementing caching or other optimization techniques might be beneficial.