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Unsafe Cross Origin Links

What This Means

URLs that link to external websites using the target=”_blank” attribute (to open in a new tab), without using rel=”noopener” (or rel=”noreferrer”) at the same time. Using target=”_blank” alone leaves those pages exposed to both security and performance issues for some legacy browsers, which are estimated to be below 5% of market share. Setting target=”_blank” on <a> elements implicitly provides the same rel behaviour as setting rel=”noopener” which does not set window.opener for most modern browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge.

What Triggers This Issue

This issue is triggered when a URL contains links to external websites using the target=”_blank” attribute (to open in a new tab), without using rel=”noopener” (or rel=”noreferrer”) at the same time. For example:

<a href="https://www.getasky.com" target="_blank">your site</a>

How To Fix

Consider the benefits of including rel=”noopener” link attribute on any links that contain the target=”_blank” attribute to avoid security and performance issues for the users of legacy browsers that may visit the website.


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