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INTRODUCTION
The Java™ platform was designed with a strong emphasis on security. At its core, the Java language itself is type-safe and provides automatic garbage collection, enhancing the robustness of application code. A secure class loading and verification mechanism ensures that only legitimate Java code is executed. The initial version of the Java platform created a safe environment for running potentially untrusted code, such as Java applets downloaded from a public network. As the platform has grown and widened its range of deployment, the Java security architecture has correspondingly evolved to support an expanding set of services. Today the architecture includes a large set of application programming interfaces (APIs), tools, and implementations of commonly-used security algorithms, mechanisms, and protocols. This provides the developer a comprehensive security framework for writing applications, and also provides the user or administrator a set of tools to securely manage applications.
The Java security APIs span a wide range of areas. Cryptographic and public key infrastructure (PKI) interfaces provide the underlying basis for developing secure applications. Interfaces for performing authentication and access control enable applications to guard against unauthorized access to protected resources.The APIs allow for multiple interoperable implementations of algorithms and other security services. Services are implemented in providers, which are plugged into the Java platform via a standard interface that makes it easy for applications to obtain security services without having to know anything about their implementations. This allows developers to focus on how to integrate security into their applications, rather than on how to implement complex security mechanisms.
The Java platform includes a number of providers that implement a core set of security services. It also allows for additional custom providers to be installed. This enables developers to extend the platform with new security mechanisms.
This paper gives a broad overview of security in the Java platform, from secure language features to the security APIs, tools, and built-in provider services, highlighting key packages and classes where applicable.
The Security API is a core API of the Java programming language, built around the java.security package (and its subpackages). This API is designed to allow developers to incorporate both low-level and high-level security functionality into their programs.
The first release of Security API in JDK 1.1 introduced the "Java Cryptography Architecture" (JCA), a framework for accessing and developing cryptographic functionality for the Java platform. In JDK 1.1, the JCA included APIs for digital signatures and message digests.
In subsequent releases, the Java 2 SDK significantly extended the Java Cryptography Architecture, as described in this document. It also upgraded the certificate management infrastructure to support X.509 v3 certificates, and introduced a new Java Security Architecture for fine-grain, highly configurable, flexible, and extensible access control.
JAVA LANGUAGE SECURITY AND BYTECODE
IRIS SCAN AND BIOMETRICS
The Java language is designed to be type-safe and easy to use. It provides automatic memory management, garbage collection, and range-checking on arrays. This reduces the overall programming burden placed on developers, leading to fewer subtle programming errors and to safer, more robust code. In addition, the Java language defines different access modifiers that can be assigned to Java classes, methods, and fields, enabling developers to restrict access to their class implementations as appropriate. Specifically, the language defines four distinct access levels: private, protected, public, and, if unspecified, package. The most open access specifier is public—access is allowed to anyone. The most restrictive modifier is private—access is not allowed outside the particular class in which the private member (a method, for example) is defined. The protected modifier allows access to any subclass, or to other classes within the same
package. Package-level access only allows access to classes within the same package.
A compiler translates Java programs into a machine-independent bytecode representation. A bytecode verifier is invoked to ensure that only legitimate bytecodes are executed in the Java runtime. It checks that the bytecodes conform to the Java Language Specification and do not violate Java language rules or namespace restrictions. The verifier also checks for memory management violations, stack underflows or overflows, and illegal data typecasts. Once bytecodes have been verified, the Java runtime prepares them for execution.
BASIC SECURITY ARCHITECTURE
The Java platform defines a set of APIs spanning major security areas, including cryptography, public key infrastructure, authentication, secure communication, and access control. These APIs allow developers to easily integrate security into their application code. They were designed around the following principles:
1. Implementation independence
Applications do not need to implement security themselves. Rather, they can request security
services from the Java platform. Security services are implemented in providers (see below),
which are plugged into the Java platform via a standard interface. An application may rely on
multiple independent providers for security functionality.
2. Implementation interoperability
Providers are interoperable across applications. Specifically, an application is not bound to a
specific provider, and a provider is not bound to a specific application.
3. Algorithm extensibility
The Java platform includes a number of built-in providers that implement a basic set of security
services that are widely used today. However, some applications may rely on emerging standards
not yet implemented, or on proprietary services. The Java platform supports the installation of
custom providers that implement such services.
Security Providers
The java.security.Provider class encapsulates the notion of a security provider in the Java platform. It specifies the provider’s name and lists the security services it implements. Multiple providers may be configured at the same time, and are listed in order of preference. When a security service is requested, the highest priority provider that implements that service is selected.
Applications rely on the relevant getInstance method to obtain a security service from an underlying provider. For example, message digest creation represents one type of service available from providers. (Chapter 4 discusses message digests and other cryptographic services.) An application invokes the getInstance method in the java.security.MessageDigest class to obtain an implementation of a specific message digest algorithm, such as MD5.
