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Interview question · Application & API Security

What is cross-site WebSocket hijacking, and how do you secure a real-time or AI-streaming WebSocket API end to end?

A WebSocket starts as an HTTP request that carries the user's cookies and skips CORS. The scored answer explains the hijack, then the controls that a long-lived connection needs that a normal request does not.

mediumNewPreparation tags: Microsoft, Google, CloudflareUpdated Nov 2026

A WebSocket starts as an HTTP request that carries the user's cookies and skips CORS. The scored answer explains the hijack, then the controls that a long-lived connection needs that a normal request does not.

Make your first attempt

What would you say before reading the answer?

  1. 01 State the assumptions your answer depends on.
  2. 02 Explain the mechanism and choose a control.
  3. 03 Name a condition that would change your decision.

The worked answer includes an approach, scoring criteria and follow-up questions. Compare the reasoning with your own.

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What if · the follow-ups in this answer

The answer works through 4 follow-ups like an interviewer would

A support chat uses a WebSocket authenticated by the session cookie. A researcher shows that a page on another site can read a logged-in customer's chat history and send messages as them.

  1. Why does this work?
  2. What do you change at the handshake?
  3. The connection is now safe to open. What else could go wrong in this chat?
  4. How do you summarise WebSocket security?

Each rung has a nudge, a model answer, the principle that carries over and the weak answer to avoid. Premium opens every answer and ladder.

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