Browsers automatically attach cookies to HTTP requests, opening the door to attacks like CSRF.

The security impact of automatic client-side expiry is tiny, since token expiration must be done server-side anyway.

The HttpOnly flag as an XSS mitigation is almost useless; competent attackers will simply run their code from the victim's browser and session. To protect against XSS, HttpOnly doesn't really help you at all. You should be setting a CSP that prevents inline and 3rd party scripts by default, and whitelist what you must.

Overall, cookies may seem like they have a lot of security features, but in reality they are just patches over poor original design. IMHO, using local storage is probably better, because there's less room to get it wrong.

If you use cookies as a storage mechanism and ignore the cookie header on your backend, you close the door to CSRF attacks.

Here's one glaring problem with local storage: literally any script on your page can access it (for example, vendor scripts). Cookies can only be accessed by scripts from the same domain from which they're created.

That's true, but if you run untrusted scripts on your site it's pretty much game over, anyway.

Why should those scripts limit themselves to stealing tokens when they can send authenticated requests from the browser? To put it another way, why would you care about knowing the root password when you have a way to run a root shell at will?

It's interesting that every time this comes up people talk as though the only vector for a malicious script running on your site is you serving it yourself. A reminder that browsers have a ridiculously lax permissions/security model for extensions which extension developers have been shown again and again to abuse (see the Stylish incident for instance).

How can they send authenticated requests if they can't access your cookies and your backend ignores the cookie header?

The scenario is XSS, where the attacker manages to run their JS code on your page, and get all the same privileges as your own code on the page. Whatever mechanism your own JS code uses to perform authenticated requests, the attacker can do the same.

That is not the scenario you described (running untrusted scripts on your site). Cookies are not protected from XSS, but they are protected against malicious or compromised vendor/CDN scripts and browser extensions. Local storage, however, is vulnerable to all of the above.

It seems that you are saying that cookies are more protected from third party code than your own code. That is incorrect.

Let's get specific: let's say you have a page on mysite.com. When a user signs in, the server sets a HttpOnly session cookie to authenticate later requests from the user.

Now let's assume your page loads evilsite.com/tracker.js. The code in tracker.js can now send requests to mysite.com, and your HttpOnly session cookie will be sent. There is no extra protection for cookies that would check if the JS code doing the sending came from mysite.com.

Obviously tracker.js cannot read the value of your session cookie (and, indeed, neither can your own code), but mysite.com is more or less totally compromised.

You're describing CSRF, but again: this vulnerability doesn't exist in the scenario I'm describing.

If you don't set HttpOnly on your cookies and ignore the cookie header on your backend (i.e. only use cookies for storage, not for transport), cookies are strictly better than local storage, since the only difference between the two is now local storage's lax access policy.

The scenario you're describing can also be solved by using a CSRF token retrieved from the backend. Meanwhile, there is literally no way to secure secrets kept in local storage from third party scripts.

No, I'm describing XSS. You know, where an attacker injects scripts on your pages, and the attacker's requests come from the same origin as your own requests. In CSRF, the attack is hosted outside the target site.

I don't believe a situation exists where using cookies for client-side storage is more secure than local storage. Could you please explain this in more detail?

Your page is mysite.com. When a user signs in, you save some sort of session token to a non-HttpOnly cookie. Your backend ignores the cookie header, and you send the session token as a different header with every request. (Basically, the same way you'd authenticate if you were to use local storage).

Now assume your page loads evilsitem.com/tracker.js. They can send requests to your backend, and the cookie will be included, but since your backend ignores the cookie header it doesn't matter. The malicious script, however, cannot access the cookie directly, since the script's origin is not the same.

That's why I say cookies used this way are strictly more secure than local storage: the fact that they're included with every request is irrelevant, and they're protected from direct access by third party scripts. Local storage is not. Even if you use JWT for auth, you should still store it in a cookie.

You are misunderstanding how the same-origin policy applies to scripts. If a page on mysite.com loads evilsite.com/tracker.js, then tracker.js runs with the same "origin" as the rest of the page that loaded it. The script has all the same access, including document.cookie, as a scripts loaded from mysite.com. Try it.

The same-origin policy only limits access between windows and frames. All scripts loaded on a page will have the same "origin".

> competent attackers will simply run their code from the victim's browser and session

What do you mean? JS even on the same page can't read HTTPOnly cookies. If you are assuming that the browser has been hacked then it is pretty much game over regardless of what you use.

We are talking about XSS, where an attacker can run their JS code on your page. If the attacker can run JS on your page, they can already do whatever your signed-in user can do. No need to read the cookie to make authenticated requests, just like your own code doesn’t need to read the cookie.