Re: secure storage of sensitive data in J2EE

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:18:15 GMT, chaim moshe said:

> where can I  store sensitive data like encryption keys, passwords, etc. in 
> J2EE?
> surely, you can save it in the keystore, but the catch is where do you store 
> the keystore password to protect it from external access?
> storing the keystore password in code or in config files is not secured 
> enough.

So when you start up, you put up a dialog box and prompt for the password.

This is hardly rocket science - Apache has had the *exact* same issue with
starting an SSL-enabled webserver from day one.  

http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.8/ssl_reference.html#ToC2
http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.8/ssl_faq.html#startup
http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.8/ssl_faq.html#remove-passphrase

Same issues, even though it's OpenSSL rather than J2EE.  You have to measure the
tradeoffs of various security choices and take the route that sounds the best for
your specific application.  Basically, which worries you more - the cert being
stealable if the machine is compromised, or the machine not restarting without
human intervention in case of a problem?

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