How to remove ASP.Net MVC Default HTTP Headers?

Question

Each page in an MVC application I'm working with sets these HTTP headers in responses:

X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
X-AspNetMvc-Version: 2.0

How do I prevent these from showing?

Answer 1

.NET Core

To remove the Server header, within the Program.cs file, add the following option:

.UseKestrel(opt => opt.AddServerHeader = false)

For dot net core 1, put add the option inside the .UseKestrel() call. For dot net core 2, add the line after UseStartup().

To remove X-Powered-By header, if deployed to IIS, edit your web.config and add the following section inside the system.webServer tag:

<httpProtocol>
    <customHeaders>
        <remove name="X-Powered-By" />
    </customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>

.NET 4.5.2

To remove the Server header, within your global.asax file add the following:

    protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string[] headers = { "Server", "X-AspNet-Version" };

        if (!Response.HeadersWritten)
        {
            Response.AddOnSendingHeaders((c) =>
            {
                if (c != null && c.Response != null && c.Response.Headers != null)
                {
                    foreach (string header in headers)
                    {
                        if (c.Response.Headers[header] != null)
                        {
                            c.Response.Headers.Remove(header);
                        }
                    }
                }
            });
        }

    }

Pre .NET 4.5.2

Add the following c# class to your project:

public class RemoveServerHeaderModule : IHttpModule
{
    public void Init(HttpApplication context)
    {
        context.PreSendRequestHeaders += OnPreSendRequestHeaders;
    }

    public void Dispose() { }

    void OnPreSendRequestHeaders(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers.Remove("Server");
    }
}

and then within your web.config add the following <modules> section:

<system.webServer>
    ....
 <modules>
    <add name="RemoveServerHeaderModule" type="MyNamespace.RemoveServerHeaderModule" />
 </modules>

However I had a problem where sub-projects couldn't find this module. Not fun.

Removing X-AspNetMvc-Version header

To remove the ''X-AspNetMvc-Version'' tag, for any version of .NET, modify your ''web.config'' file to include:

<system.web>
...
   <httpRuntime enableVersionHeader="false" />
...
</system.web>

Thanks Microsoft for making this unbelievably difficult. Or maybe that was your intention so that you could track IIS and MVC installs across the world ...

Answer 2

As shown on Removing standard server headers on Windows Azure Web Sites page, you can remove headers with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <httpProtocol>
      <customHeaders>
        <clear />
      </customHeaders>
    </httpProtocol>
    <security>
      <requestFiltering removeServerHeader="true"/>
    </security>
  </system.webServer>
  <system.web>
    <httpRuntime enableVersionHeader="false" />
  </system.web>
</configuration>

This removes the Server header, and the X- headers.

This worked locally in my tests in Visual Studio 2015.

Answer 3

I found this configuration in my web.config which was for a New Web Site... created in Visual Studio (as opposed to a New Project...). Since the question states a ASP.NET MVC application, not as relevant, but still an option.

<system.webServer>
  <httpProtocol>
    <customHeaders>
      <clear />
      <remove name="X-Powered-By" />
    </customHeaders>
   </httpProtocol>
</system.webServer>

Update: Also, Troy Hunt has an article titled Shhh… don’t let your response headers talk too loudly with detailed steps on removing these headers as well as a link to his ASafaWeb tool for scanning for them and other security configurations.

Answer 4

You can change any header or anything in Application_EndRequest() try this

protected void Application_EndRequest()
{
    // removing excessive headers. They don't need to see this.
    Response.Headers.Remove("header_name");
}

Answer 5

Check this blog Don't use code to remove headers. It is unstable according Microsoft

My take on this:

<system.webServer>          
    <httpProtocol>
    <!-- Security Hardening of HTTP response headers -->
    <customHeaders>
        <!--Sending the new X-Content-Type-Options response header with the value 'nosniff' will prevent 
                Internet Explorer from MIME-sniffing a response away from the declared content-type. -->
        <add name="X-Content-Type-Options" value="nosniff" />

        <!-- X-Frame-Options tells the browser whether you want to allow your site to be framed or not. 
                 By preventing a browser from framing your site you can defend against attacks like clickjacking. 
                 Recommended value "x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN" -->
        <add name="X-Frame-Options" value="SAMEORIGIN" />

        <!-- Setting X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies header to “master-only” will instruct Flash and PDF files that 
                 they should only read the master crossdomain.xml file from the root of the website. 
                 https://www.adobe.com/devnet/articles/crossdomain_policy_file_spec.html -->
        <add name="X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies" value="master-only" />

        <!-- X-XSS-Protection sets the configuration for the cross-site scripting filter built into most browsers. 
                 Recommended value "X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block". -->
        <add name="X-Xss-Protection" value="1; mode=block" />

        <!-- Referrer-Policy allows a site to control how much information the browser includes with navigations away from a document and should be set by all sites. 
                 If you have sensitive information in your URLs, you don't want to forward to other domains 
                 https://scotthelme.co.uk/a-new-security-header-referrer-policy/ -->
        <add name="Referrer-Policy" value="no-referrer-when-downgrade" />

        <!-- Remove x-powered-by in the response header, required by OWASP A5:2017 - Do not disclose web server configuration -->
        <remove name="X-Powered-By" />

        <!-- Ensure the cache-control is public, some browser won't set expiration without that  -->
        <add name="Cache-Control" value="public" />
    </customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>

<!-- Prerequisite for the <rewrite> section
            Install the URL Rewrite Module on the Web Server https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite -->
<rewrite>
    <!-- Remove Server response headers (OWASP Security Measure) -->
    <outboundRules rewriteBeforeCache="true">
        <rule name="Remove Server header">
            <match serverVariable="RESPONSE_Server" pattern=".+" />

            <!-- Use custom value for the Server info -->
            <action type="Rewrite" value="Your Custom Value Here." />
        </rule>
    </outboundRules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>