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No Referrer-Policy is set

LowConfirmedQuick winweb.security-headers.referrer-policy-missing

What this check looks for

You have not said how much of your addresses to share when visitors follow a link away from your site.

Why it matters

Browsers default to a sensible policy now, so this is a small gap — but the default is a browser's choice, not yours, and a URL that contains a token or an account number is worth being deliberate about.

When the check passes, your report says: “A Referrer-Policy says how much of your URLs to share”.

What it costs your score

When this check fails it removes 3 points from your Web security score, before the status, confidence and repeat multipliers are applied. Web security carries a weight of 8 in the overall score.

It shares the web-security.headers family ceiling of 20 points: however many findings that family produces, together they cannot remove more than that from Web security. One underlying problem showing up in several places is still one problem.

Severity
low
Default confidence
confirmed
Status when triggered
warn
Deduction
3 points
Family cap
web-security.headers · 20
Category
Web security
Module
Web security headers
Fix owned by
user
In the ruleset since
2026.09

How the whole score is calculated

How to fix it

Set Referrer-Policy explicitly.

The default is reasonable but it is the browser's decision rather than yours.

  1. Use strict-origin-when-cross-origin as the site-wide value.

  2. Use no-referrer on pages whose URLs carry tokens, reset links or identifiers.

How to confirm it worked

  • curl -sSI https://‹host›/ | grep -i referrer-policy

The configuration to publish
Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin

A named slot like ‹domain› — and the braces left in the configuration below — is filled in with your own values when this rule appears on a report.

Remediation by platform

nginx
add_header Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin" always;
Apache
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
	Header always set Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin"
</IfModule>
Caddy
header {
	Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin"
}
Cloudflare
Rules → Overview → Create rule → Response Header Transform Rule → Set static → Referrer-Policy = strict-origin-when-cross-origin
(Dashboard path as at 2026-09; Cloudflare reorganised these pages and may again.)

  • The always flag matters: without it nginx omits the header on error responses, which are exactly the ones an attacker aims for. Note also that any add_header in a location block discards every add_header inherited from the server block.

  • Shown because the response identified Apache. Put it in the virtual host rather than .htaccess: .htaccess is re-read on every request, and Header always set there runs too late for responses the server generates itself.

  • A Transform Rule adds the header at Cloudflare's edge, so it applies only to responses that reach visitors through Cloudflare. An origin that is reachable directly — by IP, or through a DNS record that is not proxied — still serves the response measured here without it. Setting it at the origin covers both paths.

Technical detail

No Referrer-Policy header. Every current browser defaults to strict-origin-when-cross-origin, which sends only the origin across origins and nothing at all on a downgrade. Setting the header explicitly pins that behaviour rather than inheriting it, and lets you choose no-referrer for pages whose URLs carry sensitive parameters.

Standards and references

Test this on your domain

Run the check that produces this finding, on its own, against any domain.

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