Fine-tune your App Transport Security settings
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At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right. When people connect to a public Wi-Fi hotspot, they expect to use your app to send and receive data without worrying that someone in the vicinity could intercept their connection and gain access to unencrypted data. Allowing even seemingly-innocuous data to remain unencrypted can expose people to snooping and fingerprinting by anyone on the network.
Transport Layer Security (TLS) uses encryption to protect connections from prying eyes, and URLSession provides strong TLS connections by default with App Transport Security (ATS).
If you need to connect to older servers that don't support TLS, however, you can now add ATS exceptions to your app. Ideally, exceptions should just carve out the specific domains or frameworks that make insecure connections, and you should limit any exceptions you do request. Avoid sending data unencrypted except when absolutely necessary for your app to function.
Identify necessary ATS exceptions
To make sure your app — and the data used within it — is as secure as possible, it’s important to identify whether your app is currently making insecure connections.
To check, disable all your active ATS exceptions by setting their values in your Info.plist to “NO.” From there, open your app or run your unit tests. If your app makes an insecure connection, Xcode will generate runtime errors for each one.
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If your app is generating insecure connections, there are a few steps you can take to remove them.
Secure your servers
If your app connects to servers you control, make sure those servers support secure connections. This requires a TLS certificate. If you use a hosting service, check whether they offer certificates, and make sure those certificates meet the requirements detailed in “Preventing Insecure Network Connections.”
Preventing Insecure Network Connections
Use HTTPS
If your app connects to servers you don’t control, you should always attempt to connect to those servers over HTTPS instead of HTTP. You can identify whether a server supports HTTPS by simply changing “http://” to “https://” in your URL string and trying to load data from that website. You can check this manually in a browser, or run code as follows:
let request = URLRequest(url: URL(string: “https://www.example.com”)!)Many websites redirect HTTP connections to HTTPS. Connecting over HTTPS first can often improve the performance of your app. Note, however, that while a website may use HTTPS, that doesn’t mean it’s ATS-compatible. For instance, it may be using an outdated version of TLS, which, on Safari, displays a “This Connection Is Not Private” warning.
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Remove unnecessary exceptionsOn websites where you no longer receive ATS runtime errors, you can remove those exceptions. Locate “App Transport Security Settings” in your Info.plist and click the “-” icon to remove the exceptions in question.
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Configure exception domains
If your app still needs to make insecure connections to specific domains, you can configure ATS exceptions for just those domains.
- Add Exception Domains directly to your app’s Info.plist or in the project editor. Navigate to “Signing & Capabilities” and choose the “+ Capability” option.
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- Select “App Transport Security Exception” from the list.
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- This will add an “App Transport Security Exception” section to your capabilities:
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- Click the “+” icon to add domains that your app needs to connect to insecurely.
- Enter a domain here to connect over HTTP to that domain and its subdomains. If you need to alter these settings, you can make changes directly in your Info.plist.
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Configure framework and class exceptions
On rare occasion, you still may need to make an insecure connection to an unknown domain. In this case, there are two broader exceptions you can consider offering.
- If your app needs to make insecure connections through WKWebView, add “Allows Arbitrary Loads In Web Content” to your Info.plist:
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- If your app needs to make insecure connections through AVFoundation, add “Allows Arbitrary Loads for Media”:
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These exceptions will ensure that your app only makes insecure connections via AVFoundation or WKWebView, leaving the rest of your app protected by ATS. Because these are relatively broad exceptions, however, they will allow every part of your app that uses AVFoundation or WKWebView to make insecure connections which can be intercepted and inspected.
Keep your app secure
People want to trust your app, and ATS can help you build that trust by handling their data responsibly while in transit. To get the most out of ATS:
- Make sure that your app connects to servers over HTTPS instead of HTTP.
- Tailor your ATS exceptions to your app as closely as possible.
- Periodically review your exceptions to check whether servers have started supporting HTTPS or your app no longer needs to connect those servers to make insecure connections.
Resources
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Networking with NSURLSession
NSAppTransportSecurity
Preventing Insecure Network Connections
NSExceptionDomains
NSAllowsArbitraryLoadsForMedia
NSAllowsArbitraryLoadsInWebContent
WKWebView
Learn more about App Transport Security on the Developer Forums
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