Re: secure storage of sensitive data in J2EE

Sean Radford <[email protected]> Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:06:07 +0000
Newsgroups gmane.comp.security.programming,gmane.comp.security.web-applications
Message-ID <[email protected]>
chaim moshe wrote:

> Hello list,
>
> 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.
>
>
> In the .NET environment you have DPAPI that was designed exactly for 
> this kind of problem, the sensitive data is encrypted at the OS level 
> with the user/machine password and is decrypted at runtime.
> What is the solution in the J2EE environment ?
>
> Thanks!
>
On 'Nix you can set the file permission to read for only the application 
server. That way only the account the application server runs under can 
access it - not even root if you have Mandatory Access Control running.

Regards,

Sean

-- 
Dr. Sean Radford, MBBS, MSc
[email protected]
http://www.aegeus-technology.com/ 
Distributed Identity Management Solutions