Enterprise Security API (ESAPI) Java

Java User Group San Antonio

Jarret Raim June 3rd, 2010

What is it?

ESAPI (The OWASP Enterprise Security API) is a free, open source, web application security control library that makes it easier for programmers to write lower-risk applications. The ESAPI libraries are designed to make it easier for programmers to retrofit security into existing applications. The ESAPI libraries also serve as a solid foundation for new development.

Who cares?

How Does it Work?

Allowing for language-specific differences, all OWASP ESAPI versions have the same basic design:
There is a set of security control interfaces. They define for example types of parameters that are passed to types of security controls. There is a reference implementation for each security control. The logic is not organizationspecific and the logic is not applicationspecific. An example: stringbased input validation. There are optionally your own implementations for each security control. There may be application logic contained in these classes which may be developed by or for your organization. An example: enterprise authentication.

There are several supported languages

Java EE PHP Classic ASP .NET Coldfusion Python JavaScript Haskell Force.com

And they have a plan. Maybe.

Tyranny of Choice
Write Spring Custom Java Jasypt Java Code URL Pattern Commons xml-enc EncoderLog4j Validator Cryptix JAAS Stinger JCE ACEGI Struts BouncyCastle Reform Many Anti-XSS More HDIV Java xml-dsig Logging

Standard Control

Vulnerability Theory

Threat Agent

Vector
Vector

Vulnerability

Control

Technical Impact

Business Impact
Business Impact

Vector

Vulnerability

Control Asset Business Impact

Vector

Vulnerability

Missing Control Function

Vector

Business Impact

Vulnerability Asset

Vector

Vulnerability

Control

Where do Vulnerabilities Come From?

Missing Controls
Lack of encryption Failure to perform access control

Broken Controls
Weak hash algorithm Fail open

Ignored Controls
Failure to use encryption Forgot to use output encoding

ESAPI Solves
Missing Broken

Process Solves
Ignored

Authenticator User AccessController AccessReferenceMap Validator Encoder HTTPUtilities Encryptor EncryptedProperties

Enterprise Security API

Randomizer
Exception Handling Logger IntrusionDetector SecurityConfiguration

Custom Enterprise Web Application

Existing Enterprise Security Services/Libraries

Encoder
Typical output in most web frameworks leads to XSS and CSRF vulnerabilities. The ESAPI encoder allows direct encoding depending on context.
Web (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) Databases (MySQL, Oracle) URL Shells (Unix, Windows) XML LDAP
<p>Hello, <%=name%></p> <p>Hello, <%=ESAPI.encoder().encodeForHTML(name)%> </p>

Also provides a canonnicalize method to remove any encodings.

User

Controller

Business Functions

Data Layer

Backend

isValidCreditCard isValidDataFromBrowser isValidDirectoryPath isValidFileContent isValidFileName isValidHTTPRequest isValidListItem isValidRedirectLocation isValidSafeHTML isValidPrintable safeReadLine

Validator

Encoder

Canonicalization Double Encoding Protection Sanitization Normalization

encodeForJavaScript encodeForVBScript encodeForURL encodeForHTML encodeForHTMLAttribute encodeForLDAP encodeForDN encodeForSQL encodeForXML encodeForXMLAttribute encodeForXPath

Validator
EXAMPLE: <script>alert(document.cookie)</script> ESAPI.validator().getValidInput(String context,String input,String type,int maxLength,boolean allowNull,ValidationErrorList errorList)

The Validator interface defines a set of methods for canonicalizing and validating untrusted input.
Returns booleans as not all validation problems are security issues.

assertIsValidHttpRequest() assertIsValidHttpRequestParameterSet() assertIsValidFileUpload() getValidCreditCard() getValidDate() getValidDirectoryPath() getValidDouble() getValidFileContent() getValidFileName()

Invalid input will generate a descriptive ValidationException which will be stored in the ValidationErrorList Input that is clearly an attack will generate a descriptive IntrusionException

Validator Example

ESAPI provides the ValidationRule and Validator interfaces. Implement your own validators for your data. Reference Regex codes in the ESAPI properties from generic to specific.

Global Validate Canonicalize Specific Validate Sanitize

Any Interpreter

Any Encoding
Controller

Web Service Database Mainframe

User

Business Functions

Data Layer

Etc

User Interface Set Character Set Encode For HTML File System Canonicalize Validate

Authenticator
Interface with a simple, file based example implementation Log In / Log Out Password Verification Create User Password Generation Change Password Expirations Logging Per User Session Anonymous User Locale Roles Disable / Enable Locked / Unlocked CSRF Tokens Last Login Last Invalid Login Password Age Screen Name Failed Log In Count Last Logged in Host

User

Controller

Business Functions

Data Layer

Backend

ESAPI

Users

Note that the ESAPI project does not have out of the box support for projects like Spring, but can be made to work.

Authentication

Intrusion Detection

Logging

Access Control

isAuthorizedForURL

isAuthorizedForData Web Service isAuthorizedForService Database Mainframe

isAuthorizedForFunction Controller

User

Business Functions

Data Layer

Etc

isAuthorizedForFile User Interface File System

isAuthorizedForFunction

Encryption
Encryption failures can lead to violations of the Big Three
Confidentiality Integrity Availability (maybe)

Encryption is surprisingly difficult to get right.

You are probably doing it wrong right now.

The Encryptor interface provides a set of methods for performing common encryption, random number, and hashing operations.
encrypted = ESAPI.encryptor().encrypt( decrypted );
decrypted = ESAPI.encryptor().decrypt( encrypted );

User

Controller

Business Functions

Data Layer

Backend

Integrity Seals Strong GUID Safe Config Details

Encrypted Properties

Encryptor

Encryption Digital Signatures

Random Tokens

Timestamp

Salted Hash

Direct Object Reference

Occurs when a developer exposes a reference to an internal implementation object, such as a file, directory, database record, or key, as a URL or form parameter. Fix is to generate suitably random garbage, then internally map that to the appropriate IDs. Doing this is surprisingly annoying, especially if there are no sessions.
Not really scalable friendly.

ESAPI provides a random access map which also helps protect against CSRF.
String directReference = "This is a direct reference.";
RandomAccessReferenceMap instance = new RandomAccessReferenceMap(); String ind = instance.addDirectReference((Object)directReference);

ref=jfo8we4oji

Acct:9182374

Web Service Database Mainframe

User

Access Reference Map

Etc

Report123.xls
File System

Indirect References

Direct References

Logging & Exceptions

For many applications, logging is only used to detect application errors. Is usually geared to solving problems in development
Hopefully with an eye to production.

ESAPI provides a logging implementation that integrates with the security substructure.
Logs security exceptions that are ESAPI generated with identify information Can be used by normal business code to log security exceptions or just log information with identify

Integrates an intrusion detection system that can respond to different types of intrusions by disabling accounts or other actions.

User

Controller

Business Functions

Data Layer

Backend

User Message (no detail)

Enterprise Security Exceptions

Logger

Log Message (w/Identity)

AccessControlException AuthenticationException AvailabilityException EncodingException EncryptionException ExecutorException IntegrityException IntrusionException ValidationException

Intrusion Detector

Configurable Thresholds Responses Log Intrusion Logout User Disable Account

Handling HTTP
Many applications make heavy use of HTTP for functionality
Classic ASP uses redirects for flow control, error handing, etc.

The use of data from the request accounts for most web security defects ESAPI provides methods to interact with the request
Helper methods for encryption CSRF tokens Etc.

Deals with Characters Sets and Encodings

User

Controller

Business Functions

Data Layer

Backend

Add Safe Header No Cache Headers Set Content Type Add Safe Cookie Kill Cookie Change SessionID CSRF Tokens isSecureChannel Safe Request Logging Safe File Uploads
HTTP Utilities

sendSafeForward sendSafeRedirect

Encrypt State in Cookie Hidden Field Encryption Querystring Encryption

OWASP Top Ten 2007

A1. Cross Site Scripting (XSS) A2. Injection Flaws A3. Malicious File Execution A4. Insecure Direct Object Reference A5. Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) A6. Leakage and Improper Error Handling A7. Broken Authentication and Sessions A8. Insecure Cryptographic Storage A9. Insecure Communications A10. Failure to Restrict URL Access

OWASP ESAPI
Validator, Encoder Encoder HTTPUtilities (Safe Upload) AccessReferenceMap, AccessController User (CSRF Token) EnterpriseSecurityException, HTTPUtils Authenticator, User, HTTPUtils Encryptor HTTPUtilities (Secure Cookie, Channel) AccessController

Special Thanks

Supports OWASP and ESAPI Many of the diagrams for in the slides are from a similar presentation by Aspect.