J2EE Security

Simon P. Chappell writes "Security is not just for the paranoid anymore. There is plenty of documented evidence to show that there are people that are out to get you (and your information). Sun's J2EE framework brings a work-chest with many powerful tools in it, but with power there is always complexity, and many of these tools, especially the security-oriented tools, are under-used because of this. Pankaj Kumar's book J2EE Security is a guide to using these tools when building security into your Servlets, EJBs, web services and web applications." Read on for the rest of Chappell's review.

J2EE Security for Servlets, EJBs, and Web Services
author	Pankaj Kumar
pages	426 (12 page index)
publisher	Prentice Hall
rating	9
reviewer	Simon P. Chappell
ISBN	0131402641
summary	A great combination of security primer and cookbook.

What is J2EE Security?

J2EE Security covers a very wide range of techniques and mechanisms: Access control based on permissions and authentication of identity; encryption of data passing in or out of an application; and validation of presented credentials. These are the big things: needless to say, there are levels of detail below each of these three.

What do I know about J2EE Security?

More than I did when I started reading this book! In my experience, security is either bolted on at the last minute or badly implemented using home-grown techniques. As one who has seen or tried both of these approaches, I was determined to seek out the better way, so when the chance to review this book came along I jumped at it.

Overview

The first section, with chapter one and two, is "The Background." Chapter one is a security primer and should be old hat to most of the readership of Slashdot. Chapter two is a tour of the Java language strictly from a security perspective. This is interesting and very informative, even for a long-time Java programmer like me.

The second section is "The Technology," and includes chapters three through seven. Chapter three is a discussion of cryptography with Java and would have been worth the price of the whole book for me if (I hadn't have gotten it for free as a review copy)! :-) Chapter four covers PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) with Java. Managing certificates is explained as well as the steps necessary to issue and revoke your own. Chapter five is a discussion of access control. Access control in Java is available based on the origin of the code (the applet effect), the signer of the code or the logged-in user. Chapter six concerns securing the wire. This is the use of encryption for the transmission channel, SSL in a web browser being the most obvious example, where everything served over HTTPS is encrypted. Chapter seven secures the message. This covers message encryption for those times in life where you have to use a non-encrypted transfer medium as well as techniques for authentication, so that the message you do send can be guaranteed to be authentic and provably from you.

The third section is "The Application." Chapter eight discusses the security aspects of RMI based applications, especially using the Java security managers. Chapter nine reviews web application security using both declarative and programmatic security, giving examples using Apache Tomcat.Chapter ten discusses EJB security, including JNDI-based client authentication, SSL and declarative access control. Chapter eleven talks about the security issues associated with web services using the Apache Axis tool to illustrate the points. Chapter twelve is a wrap up of the whole book.

What's To Like

The book is logically divided into chapters on each of the main aspects of security that apply to J2EE. These chapters are then located within three sections: background, technology and application. This sequence worked nicely for me, each chapter getting more detailed. This way I knew how deep I was by how far into the book I'd gotten.

The main thing that struck me about this book was that it was designed to be practical. Mr. Kumar not only explains his point and gives you example source code, but he has written a freely available security toolkit, to demonstrate each of the points he makes. The Java Security Tool Kit (JSTK) is a very nice addition to the book's text. Being able to try out the concept being explained really helps. This approach takes example code to another level and I hope other authors will take note.

What's To Consider

There is almost nothing to nit-pick concerning the book, but I do have one complaint about the JSTK software. The supplied shell scripts in the bin directory all had MS-DOS end-of-lines. This prevented them running unmodified on my OS X iBook. I had to remove all of the ^M's. This may also be a problem under Linux, but I have not had an opportunity to test there yet. Once the end-of-line problem was fixed, the software worked like a charm.

Summary

A great combination of security primer and cookbook. If you're a serious crypto-freak then you probably don't need this book. If you're a regular Java programmer looking to move to the next level in your understanding and practice of security in your J2EE applications, then this is an excellent book to purchase and learn from.

Table Of Contents

1. A Security Primer
2. A Quick Tour of the Java Platform
3. Cryptography with Java
4. PKI with Java
5. Access Control
6. Securing the Wire
7. Securing the Message
8. RMI Security
9. Web Application Security
10. EJB Security
11. Web Service Security
12. Conclusions
Appendix A: Public Key Cryptography Standards
Appendix B: Standard Names - Java Cryptographic Services
Appendix C: JSTK Tools
Appendix D: Example Programs
Appendix E: Products Used For Examples Appendix F: Standardization Bodies

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Simon P. Chappel would like Tim O'Reilly to call him to discuss the great Java book he's itching to write. You can purchase J2EE Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit a review for consideration, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

J2EE security? should be just Java 2 security

[musikit]

i find it a little funny how this book only contains three chapters on actual J2EE security.

9. Web Application Security
10. EJB Security
11. Web Service Security

Seems more like this is Security book for all Java 2 folks with J2EE tagged on at end. Ohh let us not forget that J2EE is a big buzzword that will most likely increase sales an extra 10-15% versus naming the book "Java Security"

i'll take the karma hit to state my opinion. Name the book on what it is about not what will generate a large amount of sales.

Re:Someone's going to say it, dos2unix

[ebuck]

International visitors usually say the same thing every time they visit the good old U.S. of A.

It's not pratical to maintain two dialects when they are not both in active use, in language or in computer software.

Never mind that DOS was created after UNIX, and decided to be particular about wanting thier own file format, so they embedded what was previously a printer command just in case the computer didn't realize that it already had a carrige return to process.

Of course, I'm not really trying to convince you that the UNIX way is better, but now you see it from a different point of view.

Re:Someone's going to say it, dos2unix

[Unoti]

Ironically, I had a problem where I was wishing my tools didn't support both formats seamlessly the other day! Under AIX, I use vi and :%s/^V^M// to get rid of the CR's. I was using Linux, though, and had a file with CR's in there that were messing things up, but I didn't know the cause at the time. I pulled thed file up in Linux vi, and the file looked fine. (I'm accustomed to using AIX vi, where I can see the ^M's all over the place plain as day, and delete them.) It was half an hour of troubleshooting and messing around before I saw the [DOS] notice at the bottom of the screen... It's funny how making the tools smarter can sometimes be an obstacle.

Re:Someone's going to say it, dos2unix

[RetroGeek]

Yes but )in the DOS world) I have used just a carrige return, and I have used just a line feed. And then I have used both in combination.

Just a carriage return (no line feed) can be used as a status display with a command line app. In a loop you update the status (such as a line counter), then use just the caraige return to return the cursor to the beginning of the line. The you write out the line number again ON THE SAME LINE.

Just a line feed can mimic a tree. One line down, same character position.

Re:Plain text passwords in web.xml

[citrusboy]

Agreed - plain text passwords in web.xml or properties files are a security hole. What do you do instead? If you encrypt the password but your code can decrypt it, can't an attacker grab your war file along with web.xml and decrypt it?

Re:J2EE security? should be just Java 2 security

[Delirium Tremens]

And they should probably also have added:

12. Securing the Application Server
13. Securing the JVM and the ClassLoader
14. Securing the Operating System (or at least, the File System)

Because if I add to attack a J2EE application, I would do (14), (13) and then (12). If that doesn't work, I would go straight to (10) or to the database. So, maybe they should also have added:

15. Securing the JDBC driver properties and the Database

Overall, this is another Java book that I will not buy.

Re:Plain text passwords in web.xml

[BigGerman]

Number one reason for plain password in Java deployment files is the database. These days, J2EE app _must_ use a connection pool so everything connects to the database using the same, faceless database account (app/app, prod/prod and so on).
To reduce complexity, the same db user is often the owner of the database schema so has unlimited power to mangle tables and data.
It is kind of ironic to have powerful db server the creators of which put together sofisticated securuty features and always see the database password naked, exposed in the .properties file in the war file or in the .xml definition of the connection descriptor.
JAAS would not help with the database access, right?