Vista java security

The following method returns the Subject associated with the specified AccessControlContext , or null if no Subject is associated with the specified AccessControlContext. An AuthPermission with target "getSubject" is required to call Subject. The Subject class also includes the following methods inherited from java. The following static methods may be called to perform an action as a particular Subject :.

Both methods first associate the specified subject with the current Thread's AccessControlContext , and then execute the action. This achieves the effect of having the action run as the subject. The first method can throw runtime exceptions but normal execution has it returning an Object from the run method of its action argument.

The second method behaves similarly except that it can throw a checked exception from its PrivilegedExceptionAction run method. An AuthPermission with target "doAs" is required to call the doAs methods. Here is an example utilizing the first doAs method.

Assume that someone named "Bob" has been authenticated by a LoginContext see the LoginContext and as a result a Subject was populated with a Principal of class com. Principal , and that Principal has the name "BOB". Also assume that a SecurityManager has been installed, and that the following exists in the access control policy see Policy for more details on the policy file. During execution, ExampleAction will encounter a security check when it makes a call to f.

If the grant statement in the policy is altered adding an incorrect CodeBase or changing the Principal to "MOE", for example , then a SecurityException will be thrown. The following methods also perform an action as a particular Subject. The doAsPrivileged methods behave exactly the same as the doAs methods, except that instead of associating the provided Subject with the current Thread's AccessControlContext , they use the provided AccessControlContext.

In this way, actions can be restricted by AccessControlContext s different from the current one. An AccessControlContext contains information about all the code executed since the AccessControlContext was instantiated, including the code location and the permissions the code is granted by the policy. In order for an access control check to succeed, the policy must grant each code item referenced by the AccessControlContext the required permissions. One example where this may be useful is in a server environment.

A server may authenticate multiple incoming requests and perform a separate doAs operation for each request. To start each doAs action "fresh," and without the restrictions of the current server AccessControlContext , the server can call doAsPrivileged and pass in a null AccessControlContext. As mentioned previously, once a Subject is authenticated, it is populated with associated identities, or Principal s.

A Subject may have many Principals. A Principal must implement the java. Principal and java. Serializable interfaces. See Subject for information about ways to update the Principal s associated with a Subject.

In addition to associated Principals, a Subject may own security-related attributes, which are referred to as credentials. A credential may contain information used to authenticate the subject to new services. Such credentials include passwords, Kerberos tickets, and public key certificates.

Credentials might also contain data that simply enables the subject to perform certain activities. Cryptographic keys, for example, represent credentials that enable the subject to sign or encrypt data. Public and private credential classes are not part of the core JAAS class library. Any class, therefore, can represent a credential. Developers, however, may elect to have their credential classes implement two interfaces related to credentials: Refreshable and Destroyable.

The javax. Refreshable interface provides the capability for a credential to refresh itself. For example, a credential with a particular time-restricted lifespan may implement this interface to allow callers to refresh the time period for which it is valid.

The interface has two abstract methods:. This method updates or extends the validity of the credential. The method implementation should perform an. Destroyable interface provides the capability of destroying the contents within a credential. Destroys and clears the information associated with this credential. Subsequent calls to certain methods on this credential will result in an IllegalStateException being thrown. The method implementation should perform an AuthPermission "destroyCredential" security check to ensure the caller has permission to destroy the credential.

Authentication represents the process by which the identity of a subject is verified, and must be performed in a secure fashion; otherwise a perpetrator may impersonate others to gain access to a system. Authentication typically involves the subject demonstrating some form of evidence to prove its identity.

Such evidence may be information only the subject would likely know or have such as a password or fingerprint , or it may be information only the subject could produce such as signed data using a private key. LoginContext class provides the basic methods used to authenticate subjects, and provides a way to develop an application independent of the underlying authentication technology. The LoginContext consults a Configuration to determine the authentication services, or LoginModule s , configured for a particular application.

Therefore, different LoginModule s can be plugged in under an application without requiring any modifications to the application itself. All of the constructors share a common parameter: name. This argument is used by the LoginContext as an index into the login Configuration to determine which LoginModule s are configured for the application instantiating the LoginContext.

Constructors that do not take a Subject as an input parameter instantiate a new Subject. Null inputs are disallowed for all constructors. Callers require an AuthPermission with target "createLoginContext.

See CallbackHandler for information on what a CallbackHandler is and when you may need one. When login is invoked, all of the configured LoginModule s are invoked to perform the authentication. If the authentication succeeded, the Subject which may now hold Principal s, public credentials, and private credentials can be retrieved by using the following method:. To logout a Subject and remove its authenticated Principals and credentials, the following method is provided:. The LoginModule interface gives developers the ability to implement different kinds of authentication technologies that can be plugged in under an application.

Other LoginModule s may interface to hardware devices such as smart cards or biometric devices. Note: If you are an application writer, you do not need to understand the workings of LoginModule s. All you have to know is how to write your application and specify configuration information such as in a login configuration file such that the application will be able to utilize the LoginModule specified by the configuration to authenticate the user.

If, on the other hand, you are a programmer who wishes to write a LoginModule implementing an authentication technology, see the Java Authentication and Authorization Service JAAS : LoginModule Developer's Guide for detailed step-by-step instructions. In some cases a LoginModule must communicate with the user to obtain authentication information. LoginModule s use a javax. CallbackHandler for this purpose. Applications implement the CallbackHandler interface and pass it to the LoginContext , which forwards it directly to the underlying LoginModule s.

A LoginModule uses the CallbackHandler both to gather input from users such as a password or smart card pin number or to supply information to users such as status information.

By allowing the application to specify the CallbackHandler , underlying LoginModules can remain independent of the different ways applications interact with users. For example, the implementation of a CallbackHandler for a GUI application might display a window to solicit input from a user. On the other hand, the implementation of a CallbackHandler for a non-GUI tool might simply prompt the user for input directly from the command line.

The LoginModule passes the CallbackHandler handle method an array of appropriate Callback s, for example a NameCallback for the user name and a PasswordCallback for the password, and the CallbackHandler performs the requested user interaction and sets appropriate values in the Callback s. For example, to process a NameCallback , the CallbackHandler may prompt for a name, retrieve the value from the user, and call the NameCallback 's setName method to store the name.

The CallbackHandler documentation has a lengthy example not included in this document that readers may want to examine. LoginModules may pass an array of Callbacks directly to the handle method of a CallbackHandler.

To make JAAS authorization take place, granting access control permissions based not just on what code is running but also on who is running it, the following is required:. The following sections describe the Policy abstract class and the authorization-specific classes AuthPermission and PrivateCredentialPermission. The java. Policy class is an abstract class for representing the system-wide access control policy.

As a default, the JDK provides a file-based subclass implementation, which was upgraded to support Principal -based grant entries in policy files. We have an applet that is deployed to millions of users worldwide in G2C and B2B environments and transparency is a very important key feature of the product. Aside from Vista, Entrust's signed applets have worked for over 7 years now with the default browser configuration on many OS platforms, and we have never encountered such a central issue with the applet trust model with any other OS.

Turning off Protected Mode on Vista or adding the website to IE7's Trusted Sites list are unacceptable solutions to Entrust since they break the zero-configuration feature inherent to our applet products. This is not and Enhancement Request, this is a Bug. This is not a limitation that can be taken lightly if Java would like to continue to be considered an industry leading cross-platform web technology going forward. Open index. ACTUAL - After the user accepts the Trust Dialog the signed applet is restricted by the browser's low privilege level and is very limited in its operations.

Vector ; for java. Instead of running the applets in a JVM embedded in the web browser's process, they are now run in a separate JVM process which communicates back to the web browser. This work was checked in under Providers that implement export-controlled services must be digitally signed by a certificate issued by the Oracle JCE Certificate Authority.

Most of the built-in providers implement cryptographic algorithms in Java code. Public Key Infrastructure PKI is a term used for a framework that enables secure exchange of information based on public key cryptography.

It allows identities of people, organizations, etc. PKI encompasses keys, certificates, public key encryption, and trusted Certification Authorities CAs who generate and digitally sign certificates. The classes related to PKI are located in the java. The Java platform provides for long-term persistent storage of cryptographic keys and certificates via key and certificate stores. Specifically, the java. CertStore class represents a certificate store , a public and potentially vast repository of unrelated and typically untrusted certificates.

KeyStore and CertStore implementations are distinguished by types. It also contains a proprietary file-based key store type called JKS which stands for Java Key Store , and a type called DKS Domain Key Store which is a collection of keystores that are presented as a single logical keystore.

The Java platform includes a special built-in key store, cacerts , that contains a number of certificates for well-known, trusted CAs. The keytool utility is able to list the certificates included in cacerts. This means that keys and certificates residing in secure hardware such as a smart card can be accessed and used by Java applications via the KeyStore API. Note that smart card keys may not be permitted to leave the device.

In such cases, the java. Key object returned by the KeyStore API may simply be a reference to the key that is, it would not contain the actual key material. Such a Key object can only be used to perform cryptographic operations on the device where the actual key resides. The Java platform also includes an LDAP certificate store type for accessing certificates stored in an LDAP directory , as well as an in-memory Collection certificate store type for accessing certificates managed in a java.

Collection object. Use it to perform the following tasks:. Typically, a JAR file contains the class files and auxiliary resources associated with applets and applications. Use keytool to generate or import appropriate keys and certificates into your key store if they are not there already. Use the jar tool to package the code in a JAR file. Authentication is the process of determining the identity of a user. In the context of the Java runtime environment, it is the process of identifying the user of an executing Java program.

In certain cases, this process may rely on the services described in the section Java Cryptography. The Java platform provides APIs that enable an application to perform user authentication via pluggable login modules.

Applications call into the LoginContext class in the javax. The configuration specifies which login module an implementation of the javax. LoginModule interface is to be used to perform the actual authentication. Since applications solely talk to the standard LoginContext API, they can remain independent from the underlying plug-in modules.

New or updated modules can be plugged in for an application without having to modify the application itself. The following figure illustrates the independence between applications and underlying login modules:. It is important to note that although login modules are pluggable components that can be configured into the Java platform, they are not plugged in via security providers. Therefore, they do not follow the provider searching model as described in the section Security Providers.

Instead, as is shown in Figure , login modules are administered by their own unique configuration. The Java platform provides the following built-in login modules, all in the com. Authentication can also be achieved during the process of establishing a secure communication channel between two peers. The Java platform provides implementations of a number of standard communication protocols, which are discussed in the section Secure Communication.

The data that travels across a network can be accessed by someone who is not the intended recipient. When the data includes private information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, steps must be taken to make the data unintelligible to unauthorized parties. It is also important to ensure that you are sending the data to the appropriate party, and that the data has not been modified, either intentionally or unintentionally, during transport.

Cryptography forms the basis required for secure communication; see the section Java Cryptography. The Java platform also provides API support and provider implementations for a number of standard secure communication protocols. TLS uses a combination of cryptographic processes by providing authentication, confidentiality and integrity properties for communication over a untrusted or potential hostile network.

TLS is application protocol independent. A key manager is encapsulated by the javax. KeyManager class, and manages the keys used to perform authentication. A trust manager is encapsulated by the TrustManager class in the same package , and makes decisions about who to trust based on certificates in the key store it manages.

Simple Authentication and Security Layer SASL is an Internet standard that specifies a protocol for authentication and optional establishment of a security layer between client and server applications. SASL defines how authentication data is to be exchanged, but does not itself specify the contents of that data. It is a framework into which specific authentication mechanisms that specify the contents and semantics of the authentication data can fit.

There are a number of standard SASL mechanisms defined by the Internet community for various security levels and deployment scenarios. It is defined to be mechanism-neutral; an application that uses the API need not be hardwired into using any particular SASL mechanism. Applications can select the mechanism to use based on desired security features. The API supports both client and server applications.

Sasl class is used to create SaslClient and SaslServer objects. SASL mechanism implementations are supplied in provider packages. Each provider may support one or more SASL mechanisms and is registered and invoked via the standard provider architecture.

GSS-API offers application programmers uniform access to security services atop a variety of underlying security mechanisms. At this time, it is not possible to plug in additional mechanisms. Before two applications can use GSS-API to securely exchange messages between them, they must establish a joint security context. The context encapsulates shared state information that might include, for example, cryptographic keys.

Both applications create and use an org. GSSContext object to establish and maintain the shared information that makes up the security context. Once a security context has been established, it can be used to prepare secure messages for exchange. The access control architecture in the Java platform protects access to sensitive resources for example, local files or sensitive application code for example, methods in a class. All access control decisions are mediated by a security manager, represented by the java.

SecurityManager class. A SecurityManager must be installed into the Java runtime in order to activate the access control checks. Local applications executed via the java command are by default not run with a SecurityManager installed. In order to run local applications with a SecurityManager , either the application itself must programmatically set one via the setSecurityManager method in the java.

System class , or java must be invoked with a -Djava. A permission represents access to a system resource. In order for a resource access to be allowed for an applet or an application running with a security manager , the corresponding permission must be explicitly granted to the code attempting the access.