8. Security Considerations

This section is meant to inform developers, information providers, and users of known security concerns specific to HTTP caching. More general security considerations are addressed in HTTP messaging [RFC7230] and semantics [RFC7231].

Caches expose additional potential vulnerabilities, since the contents of the cache represent an attractive target for malicious exploitation. Because cache contents persist after an HTTP request is complete, an attack on the cache can reveal information long after a user believes that the information has been removed from the network. Therefore, cache contents need to be protected as sensitive information.

In particular, various attacks might be amplified by being stored in a shared cache; such "cache poisoning" attacks use the cache to distribute a malicious payload to many clients, and are especially effective when an attacker can use implementation flaws, elevated privileges, or other techniques to insert such a response into a cache. One common attack vector for cache poisoning is to exploit differences in message parsing on proxies and in user agents; see Section 3.3.3 of [RFC7230] for the relevant requirements.

Likewise, implementation flaws (as well as misunderstanding of cache operation) might lead to caching of sensitive information (e.g., authentication credentials) that is thought to be private, exposing it to unauthorized parties.

Furthermore, the very use of a cache can bring about privacy concerns. For example, if two users share a cache, and the first one browses to a site, the second may be able to detect that the other has been to that site, because the resources from it load more quickly, thanks to the cache.

Note that the Set-Cookie response header field [RFC6265] does not inhibit caching; a cacheable response with a Set-Cookie header field can be (and often is) used to satisfy subsequent requests to caches. Servers who wish to control caching of these responses are encouraged to emit appropriate Cache-Control response header fields.