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python requests x-csrf-token

Narkw Brahma

Narkw Brahma

• 1 min read

Python Requests X-CSRF-Token

If you are working with web applications, you may come across an error message that says "CSRF token missing or incorrect". This error message is a security measure against cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks.

CSRF attacks occur when a user is tricked into clicking a link or button that performs an action on a website without their knowledge or consent. To prevent these attacks, web applications require a CSRF token to be included with any requests that perform actions.

What is X-CSRF-Token?

X-CSRF-Token is a header that contains the CSRF token for a particular web application. When making a request to a web application, the X-CSRF-Token header must be included with the request to prove that the request is legitimate and not part of a CSRF attack.

Using Python Requests to Get X-CSRF-Token

If you are working with Python and the Requests library, getting the X-CSRF-Token header is relatively easy. Here's an example:


import requests

url = 'https://example.com/'
response = requests.get(url)

csrf_token = response.headers['X-CSRF-Token']

print(csrf_token)

In this example, we are making a GET request to the https://example.com/ URL. The response object contains the headers for the response, including the X-CSRF-Token header. We can retrieve this header by accessing the headers dictionary of the response object and getting the value for the 'X-CSRF-Token' key.

Alternative Methods

There are other ways to get the CSRF token for a web application. Here are some alternatives:

  • Use a browser extension like "View Page Source" or "Developer Tools" to view the source code of the webpage and find the CSRF token.
  • Look for a hidden input field with a name of "csrf_token" or similar in the HTML code and extract its value.
  • If you have access to the web application's code, you can retrieve the CSRF token from a session variable or from a cookie.

Regardless of the method you choose, it is important to include the X-CSRF-Token header in your requests to the web application to ensure that your requests are legitimate and not part of a CSRF attack.

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