URL Validation Overview

Some rogue websites may steal links from other websites to enrich their content without any costs. Link stealing hurts the interests of the original websites and it is also a strain on their servers. URL validation is designed to address this issue.

In HTTP, the Referer field allows websites and web servers to identify where people are visiting them from. URL validation of OBS utilizes this Referer field. The idea is that once you find that a request to your resource is not originated from an authorized source, you can have the request blocked or redirected to a specific web page. This way, OBS prevents unauthorized access to data stored in buckets.

Such authorization is controlled using both whitelists and blacklists.