Where should I store my JWT in 2019 and is the localStorage really not secure?

10
votes

Interesting topic. Since I'm creating my first real bigger project with a Node.js Api and React Redux Client I need authentication.

Now I'm at the point where I don't know how to handle authentication "the right way".

Since I read many topics about it but the oppinions differ.

So at first there are the people that say instantly: Don't use localStorage with JWT.

For example here is an article: https://dev.to/rdegges/please-stop-using-local-storage-1i04

Here is another article from auth0: https://auth0.com/docs/security/store-tokens

But then I digged deeper into the wide world of authentication and I found many people stating:

"localStorage is as secure as a cookie"

For example from the first article the first comment, the third reply (here is a link: https://dev.to/jondubois/comment/373l )

I mean he got a point right? After reading that and some other articles and comments that say it's perfectly fine to store it in localStorage if you are not a bank with very sensible data.

So here I'm in 2019, not a beginner but also not an experienced developer, asking myself how I should implement this authentication flow without beeing too over compliacated (there are flows for storing the jwt into a httpOnly cookie for example) but on the other hand also not very easy to hack.

I'm trying to create a forum application. You can register, create your own forum and then other users can register for this forum. So basic authentication where I just send the user_id and token with the JWT.

I would really appreciate to here you oppinions and your recommendations guys.

2
javascriptreactjssecuritysessionauthentication

2 Answers

2
votes

I'm looked for this answer too, and finally, I found really interesting and helpful articles about the security of JWT token, that is:
- https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/179487/store-splitted-jwt-for-csrf-protection-and-refresh-strategy
- https://medium.com/@jcbaey/authentication-in-spa-reactjs-and-vuejs-the-right-way-e4a9ac5cd9a3
TL;DR you should store 1st part of token in cookies with httpOnly: true parameter and rest of token in cookies without httpOnly argument and Javascript can take and use in the browser your JWT payload information.

-2
votes

Storing JWT at the early stages is as simple as you need it to be. Store it in localstorage as a hash which is sent back from the server. Not the plain JWT token. And make use of httpOnly.