🛡️ HTTP Header Analyzer (Advanced AppSec Tool)

A Python-based HTTP security header auditing tool that identifies weak or missing security headers across one or more web applications. It generates OWASP-aligned remediation guidance, severity ratings, and exports JSON + HTML reports suitable for AppSec teams, vulnerability assessments, and developer handoff.

This tool automates the security header review process and accelerates security assessments.

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📂 Project Structure

http-header-analyzer/
│── src/
│   └── header_analyzer.py
│── reports/
│   └── .gitkeep
│── wordlists/
│   └── .gitkeep
│── README.md
│── LICENSE

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🚀 Features

✔ Full Security Header Evaluation

Checks for the industry-standard security headers:

• Content-Security-Policy (CSP)
• Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS)
• X-Frame-Options
• X-Content-Type-Options
• Referrer-Policy
• Permissions-Policy

✔ OWASP-Aligned Remediation

Each missing header includes:

• Severity (HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW)
• Description
• Recommended fix aligned with OWASP best practices

✔ Multi-Target Scanning

Scan:

• A single URL
• Multiple URLs
• A .txt file containing URLs

✔ JSON + HTML Reporting

Automatically generates:

• JSON report (header-report-*.json)
• HTML report (header-report-*.html)

Ideal for client deliverables.

✔ Colorized CLI Output

Clear and readable terminal output with severity-based highlighting.

✔ Domain Normalization

URLs automatically corrected to https:// when needed.

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🧪 Usage

Scan a Single Target

python3 src/header_analyzer.py https://example.com

Scan Multiple Targets

python3 src/header_analyzer.py https://site1.com https://site2.org https://site3.net

Scan from URL List File

targets.txt:

https://example.com
https://app.test.com
https://login.internal

Run:

python3 src/header_analyzer.py targets.txt

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📤 Example Console Output

=== https://example.com ===
Status: 200

[+] Content-Security-Policy (OK)
[-] Strict-Transport-Security MISSING | Severity: HIGH
[-] X-Frame-Options MISSING | Severity: MEDIUM

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🧾 Example Report Files

Inside /reports/:

header-report-20251114-153210.json
header-report-20251114-153210.html

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🛠 How It Works (Internals)

1. Normalize URL

Ensures http:// or https:// prefix is applied automatically.

2. Fetch HTTP Response

Uses a modern User-Agent and timeout protection.

3. Header Evaluation

For each of the 6 key security headers:

• Check presence
• Identify severity
• Provide OWASP remediation text

4. Structured Results

Stores:

• Present headers
• Missing headers
• Raw header dump
• Status code

5. Report Generation

Creates:

• JSON structured report
• HTML formatted table with severity coloring

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📈 Severity Ratings

Severity	Meaning
HIGH	Critical header missing; high exploitability (CSP, HSTS)
MEDIUM	Important but not critical (XFO, X-Content-Type-Options)
LOW	Best-practice hardening (Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy)

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🧩 OWASP Remediation Mapping

The tool follows OWASP best practices for headers:

• CSP: Prevents XSS & injection
• HSTS: Prevents downgrade attacks
• XFO: Stops clickjacking
• XCTO: Prevents MIME sniffing
• Referrer-Policy: Reduces data leakage
• Permissions-Policy: Restricts browser features

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📌 Example HTML Report Preview

(Automatically generated)

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
|               HTTP Security Header Report                    |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| URL: https://example.com                                     |
| Status: 200                                                  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------|
| Missing Headers:                                             |
|    HSTS – HIGH severity – remediation text...                |
|    X-Frame-Options – MEDIUM severity – remediation text...   |
| Present Headers:                                             |
|    Content-Security-Policy – HIGH severity (OK)             |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

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📌 Roadmap / Future Enhancements

• Scan recursion for pages discovered via sitemap
• CSP quality scoring
• Response header entropy checks
• Policy misconfiguration detection
• Passive fingerprinting detection

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🧑‍⚖️ Ethical Disclaimer

This tool is intended for authorized security testing and educational use only. Analyzing systems without permission is illegal and unethical.

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👨‍💻 Author

Vignesh Mani Offensive Security Researcher GitHub: https://github.com/vigneshoffsec LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/vignesh-m17