Security Headers Analyzer – Check HTTP Response Security Headers

The Security Headers Analyzer helps you understand how well your site protects users at the HTTP layer. By scanning a URL, it inspects the response headers your server sends and highlights which security headers are present, missing or misconfigured.

Instead of manually checking headers in browser DevTools or curl, this tool gives you a clear, human-readable summary of your current security posture.

What the Security Headers Analyzer does

This tool sends a request to the URL you provide and analyzes the HTTP response headers. It focuses on security-related headers that modern browsers use to prevent common attacks and risky behaviors.

For each header, the tool can help you see:

• Whether the header is present or missing

• Whether the value follows widely recommended best practices

• Potential risks caused by weak or overly permissive configurations

The result is a quick, actionable overview that you can use to prioritize hardening tasks with your development or DevOps team.

Why security headers matter

Security headers are a lightweight but powerful way to reduce your attack surface without rewriting your entire application. They instruct browsers how to handle content, scripts, frames, and connections, which helps defend against:

• Clickjacking

• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

• MIME-type sniffing attacks

• Mixed-content and protocol downgrade issues

• Data leakage through referrer information

A strong security header configuration improves user protection, helps with compliance requirements and signals that your site is professionally maintained. Combined with TLS, secure cookies and good coding practices, it forms an important layer in your overall security strategy.

Security headers this tool can highlight

Depending on your configuration, you may see some or all of these headers in the report:

• Content-Security-Policy (CSP)
  Controls which sources of scripts, styles, images and other resources are allowed. A solid CSP significantly reduces XSS risk.

• Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS)
  Forces browsers to connect over HTTPS only, preventing protocol downgrade attacks and some man-in-the-middle scenarios.

• X-Frame-Options
  Restricts whether your pages can be embedded in iframes, helping to prevent clickjacking.

• X-Content-Type-Options
  Typically set to nosniff, telling browsers not to guess MIME types and thereby reducing certain injection vectors.

• Referrer-Policy
  Controls how much referrer information is sent when users navigate away from your site, helping to protect user privacy.

• Permissions-Policy (formerly Feature-Policy)
  Allows you to enable or disable powerful browser features (camera, microphone, geolocation, etc.) on a per-origin basis.

• X-XSS-Protection (legacy)
  Enables or disables older browser XSS filters. Modern setups rely more on CSP and secure coding, but some stacks still use this header.

By seeing which of these headers are present and how they are configured, you can quickly identify gaps that need attention.

How to use the Security Headers Analyzer

1. Enter the URL of the page you want to test in the input field.

2. Start the analysis to let the tool fetch the HTTP response from your server.

3. Review the list of detected headers and their values.

4. Note which important security headers are missing or have weak, overly broad configurations.

5. Share the findings with your development, DevOps or hosting team and plan configuration updates.

You can repeat this for key templates (home, login, checkout, dashboard, admin panels) as well as API endpoints and subdomains.

Interpreting the results

When you look at the report, focus on three main aspects:

• Coverage – Are core security headers like HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options and X-Content-Type-Options present at all?

• Strength – Are the values strict enough to provide meaningful protection, or are they configured with overly permissive rules such as * or unsafe-inline everywhere?

• Consistency – Do different pages or subdomains share a consistent policy, or are there unnecessary discrepancies that could lead to gaps?

Missing headers represent clear improvement opportunities. Misconfigured headers (for example, a CSP that is too permissive) may give a false sense of security and should be tightened over time.

Best practices for HTTP security headers

Use the Security Headers Analyzer as a guide while aligning your configuration with modern best practices:

• Enforce HTTPS with Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) and include an appropriate max-age.

• Implement a Content-Security-Policy that blocks inline scripts where possible and restricts external domains to a controlled list.

• Set X-Frame-Options (or the CSP frame-ancestors directive) to prevent your site from being framed by untrusted origins.

• Always use X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff to reduce MIME-type sniffing issues.

• Configure Referrer-Policy to limit sensitive referrer data, for example strict-origin-when-cross-origin or stricter where appropriate.

• Use Permissions-Policy to explicitly allow only the features your site truly needs.

After deploying header changes, re-run the Security Headers Analyzer to confirm that your new configuration is active and consistent across key pages.

When to use this tool in your workflow

The Security Headers Analyzer is especially useful in these situations:

• After migrating to HTTPS or changing your CDN, reverse proxy or hosting provider

• When launching a new application, subdomain or admin interface

• During regular security reviews, penetration tests or compliance checks

• When hardening legacy applications that lack modern protections

• After adding third-party integrations that may require CSP updates or iframe allowances

Making this tool part of your standard deployment and audit process helps ensure that configuration changes do not accidentally weaken your security headers.

FAQ

Do security headers replace the need for secure coding?
No. Security headers are an additional protective layer. They work best when combined with secure coding practices, input validation, escaping, proper authentication and other application-level controls.

Can strict security headers break my site?
If configured without testing, some headers (especially CSP and Permissions-Policy) can block scripts, iframes or features that your site depends on. Always roll out stricter policies gradually, test in staging and monitor for broken functionality.

Do security headers have an impact on SEO?
Indirectly, yes. Strong security practices improve user trust, reduce the risk of compromise and help maintain stable availability. Search engines also prefer secure HTTPS experiences. While headers alone are not a direct ranking factor, they contribute to a more reliable, trustworthy site.