14. What is CORS and why is it important?

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) is a security feature implemented in browsers that allows controlling which resources can be requested from a different domain than the one from which the web page originates. CORS is important because:

1. Security: It prevents unauthorized requests to resources on different domains, protecting against attacks like Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF).

2. Access Control: It allows servers to specify which domains can access their resources using headers like Access-Control-Allow-Origin.

3. Enhanced Functionality: With CORS, it's possible to create applications that can safely request resources from multiple domains, which is essential for many modern web applications.

Example CORS headers:

• Access-Control-Allow-Origin: Specifies which domains can access the resources.
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: Specifies which HTTP methods are allowed during requests.
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Specifies which HTTP headers can be used during requests.

Understanding CORS is crucial for building secure and efficient web applications that need to communicate with resources on different domains.