Prevent Clickjacking in Symfony with Best Practices

May 11, 2025

Clickjacking is a deceptive technique where an attacker tricks users into clicking on something different from what they perceive, often by hiding malicious UI elements behind legitimate frames. This can lead to unauthorized actions, data leaks, or even account compromise.

Prevent Clickjacking in Symfony with Best Practices

In this blog post, we’ll explore how you can prevent clickjacking in Symfony, use the right security headers, view working code examples, and test your site using our Free Website Security Scanner tool.

🛡️ What is Clickjacking?

Clickjacking (also called “UI redress attack”) involves embedding a legitimate website inside an invisible <iframe> on a malicious site. The user thinks they're interacting with your site, but they're actually clicking hidden buttons or links controlled by the attacker.

Example Attack Flow:

Your login page is embedded in a hidden iframe on a malicious website.
The attacker places a fake button or image on top.
The user thinks they’re clicking something harmless but unknowingly submits a form.

🔒 How to Prevent Clickjacking in Symfony

Symfony provides powerful ways to protect against clickjacking using response headers. Let's explore how to do this.

✅ Method 1: Using `X-Frame-Options` Header

The X-Frame-Options header tells the browser whether your site can be embedded into an iframe.

💡 Recommended Settings:

DENY – Completely disallows embedding.
SAMEORIGIN – Only allows embedding from the same origin.

🧑‍💻 Symfony Example: Setting X-Frame-Options in Middleware/Event Listener

// src/EventListener/ClickjackingProtectionListener.php
namespace App\EventListener;

use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Event\ResponseEvent;

class ClickjackingProtectionListener
{
    public function onKernelResponse(ResponseEvent $event)
    {
        $response = $event->getResponse();
        $response->headers->set('X-Frame-Options', 'DENY');
    }
}

Then register the listener in services.yaml:

# config/services.yaml
services:
    App\EventListener\ClickjackingProtectionListener:
        tags:
            - { name: kernel.event_listener, event: kernel.response }

✅ Method 2: Using Content Security Policy (CSP)

A more flexible and modern approach is using the Content-Security-Policy header.

💡 Symfony Example: Setting CSP to Prevent Framing

// src/EventListener/CSPListener.php
namespace App\EventListener;

use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Event\ResponseEvent;

class CSPListener
{
    public function onKernelResponse(ResponseEvent $event)
    {
        $response = $event->getResponse();
        $response->headers->set('Content-Security-Policy', "frame-ancestors 'none'");
    }
}

Again, register the service:

# config/services.yaml
services:
    App\EventListener\CSPListener:
        tags:
            - { name: kernel.event_listener, event: kernel.response }

This approach ensures modern browser compatibility and granular control over resource loading.

👨‍💻 Symfony Response Object Inline Example

You can also set headers directly in a controller if needed:

// src/Controller/SecurityController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;

class SecurityController extends AbstractController
{
    public function securePage(): Response
    {
        $response = new Response('<html><body>Secure Page</body></html>');
        $response->headers->set('X-Frame-Options', 'DENY');
        return $response;
    }
}

📸 Screenshot of Our Website Vulnerability Scanner Tool

Screenshot of the free tools webpage where you can access security assessment tools.

📸 Screenshot of a Sample Website Vulnerability Report to check Website Vulnerability

An Example of a vulnerability assessment report generated with our free tool, providing insights into possible vulnerabilities.

🔍 How to Check If Your Site Is Vulnerable?

You can use our Free Website Security Checker Tool to instantly test whether your Symfony application is vulnerable to clickjacking.

This tool also detects over 30+ other vulnerabilities, including:

Missing security headers
CSP misconfiguration
Open redirect
and many more...

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✅ Try Our Professional Web App Penetration Testing Service

At Pentest Testing Corp., we provide deep manual and automated testing that covers:

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📚 Further Reading & Blog

Want more tips and coding walkthroughs for Symfony and other frameworks? Visit our official blog:

👉 https://www.pentesttesting.com/blog/

We post regularly about:

Secure coding in PHP, Laravel, Symfony
Web app attack vectors
Threat modeling
Security automation with tools like Burp Suite and OWASP ZAP

🧾 Summary

Prevention Method	Symfony Integration	Status
X-Frame-Options	Response Listener	✅ Strong
CSP Header	Response Listener	✅ Modern
Inline Header	Controller Response	⚠️ Limited

Use both X-Frame-Options and Content-Security-Policy for maximum clickjacking protection.

🧪 Test It Now

Head over to https://free.pentesttesting.com/ and run a full scan. Stay ahead of attackers by securing your Symfony apps today!

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