Desktop Application Security in Java (DASEC-J)

 

Course Overview

Your application written in Java works as intended, so you are done, right? But did you consider feeding in incorrect values? 16Gbs of data? A null? An apostrophe? Negative numbers, or specifically -1 or -231? Because that’s what the bad guys will do – and the list is far from complete.

Handling security needs a healthy level of paranoia, and this is what this course provides: a strong emotional engagement by lots of hands on labs and stories from real life, all to substantially improve code hygiene. Mistakes, consequences, and best practices are our blood, sweat and tears.

All this is put in the context of Java, and extended by core programming issues, discussing security pitfalls of the Java language and framework.

So that you are prepared for the forces of the dark side.

So that nothing unexpected happens.

Nothing.

Course Content

  • Cyber security basics
  • Input validation
  • Security features
  • Time and state
  • Errors
  • Cryptography for developers
  • Common software security weaknesses
  • Using vulnerable components
  • Wrap up

Who should attend

Java developers working on desktop applications

Prerequisites

General Java development

Course Objectives

  • Getting familiar with essential cyber security concepts
  • Identify vulnerabilities and their consequences
  • Learn the security best practices in Java
  • Input validation approaches and principles
  • Understanding how cryptography can support appplication security
  • Learning how to use cryptographic APIs correctly in Java
  • Managing vulnerabilities in third party components

Outline: Desktop Application Security in Java (DASEC-J)

DAY 1

Cyber security basics

  • What is security?
  • Threat and risk
  • Cyber security threat types
  • Consequences of insecure software
    • Constraints and the market
    • The dark side
  • Categorization of bugs
    • The Seven Pernicious Kingdoms
    • Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
    • CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Errors
    • SEI CERT Secure Coding Guidelines

Input validation

  • Input validation principles
    • Blacklists and whitelists
    • Data validation techniques
    • What to validate – the attack surface
    • Where to validate – defense in depth
    • How to validate – validation vs transformations
    • Output sanitization
    • Encoding challenges
    • Validation with regex
  • Injection
    • Injection principles
    • Injection attacks
    • Code injection
      • OS command injection
        • OS command injection best practices
        • Using Runtime.exec()
        • Using ProcessBuilder
        • Case study – Shellshock
        • Lab – Shellshock
        • Case study – Command injection via ping
      • Script injection
    • General protection best practices
  • Integer handling problems
    • Representing signed numbers
    • Integer visualization
    • Integer overflow
    • Lab – Integer overflow
    • Signed / unsigned confusion in Java
    • Case study – The Stockholm Stock Exchange
    • Integer truncation
    • Best practices
      • Upcasting
      • Precondition testing
      • Postcondition testing
      • Using big integer libraries
      • Integer handling in Java
      • Lab – Integer handling
    • Files and streams
      • Path traversal
      • Path traversal-related examples
      • Lab – Path traversal
      • Additional challenges in Windows
      • Path traversal best practices
    • Unsafe reflection
      • Reflection without validation
      • Lab – Unsafe reflection
    • Unsafe native code
      • Native code dependence
      • Lab – Unsafe JNI
      • Best practices for dealing with native code

DAY 2

Security features

  • Authentication
    • Authentication basics
    • Multi-factor authentication
    • Authentication weaknesses – spoofing
    • Case study – PayPal 2FA bypass
    • User interface best practices
    • Lab – On-line password brute forcing
    • Password management
      • Inbound password management
        • Storing account passwords
        • Password in transit
        • Lab – Is just hashing passwords enough?
        • Dictionary attacks and brute forcing
        • Salting
        • Adaptive hash functions for password storage
        • Password policy
          • NIST authenticator requirements for memorized secrets
          • Password length
          • Password hardening
          • Using passphrases
          • Lab – Applying a password policy
        • Case study – The Ashley Madison data breach
          • The dictionary attack
          • The ultimate crack
          • Exploitation and the lessons learned
        • Password database migration
          • Outbound password management
            • Hard coded passwords
            • Best practices
            • Lab – Hardcoded password
            • Protecting sensitive information in memory
              • Challenges in protecting memory
              • Storing sensitive data in memory
  • Authorization
    • Access control basics
  • Information exposure
    • Exposure through extracted data and aggregation
    • Case study – Strava data exposure
    • System information leakage
      • Leaking system information
    • Information exposure best practices
  • Java platform security
    • The Java programming language and runtime environment
    • Type safety and security
    • Security features of the JRE
      • The ClassLoader and the BytecodeVerifier
    • Application-level access control in Java
      • Permissions and the Security Manager
      • Privilege best practices
    • Role-based access control
      • Java Authentication and Authorization Services (JAAS)
    • Protecting Java code and applications
      • Code signing
      • Lab – Code signing and permissions
  • UI security
    • UI security principles
    • Sensitive information in the user interface
    • Misinterpretation of UI features or actions
    • Insufficient UI feedback
    • Relying on hidden or disabled UI element
    • Insufficient anti-automation

Time and state

  • Race conditions
    • Race condition in object data members
      • Singleton member fields
      • Lab – Singleton member fields
    • File race condition
      • Time of check to time of usage – TOCTTOU
      • Insecure temporary file
    • Database race conditions
      • Lab – Database race conditions
    • Avoiding race conditions in Java

Errors

  • Error and exception handling principles
  • Error handling
    • Returning a misleading status code
    • Reachable assertion
    • Information exposure through error reporting
  • Exception handling
    • In the catch block. And now what?
    • Catching NullPointerException
    • Empty catch block

DAY 3

Cryptography for developers

  • Cryptography basics
  • Java Cryptographic Architecture (JCA) in brief
  • Elementary algorithms
    • Random number generation
      • Pseudo random number generators (PRNGs)
      • Cryptographically strong PRNGs
      • Using virtual random streams
      • Weak and strong PRNGs in Java
      • Using random numbers in Java
      • Case study – Equifax credit account freeze
      • Lab – Random numbers in Java
    • Hashing
      • Hashing basics
      • Common hashing mistakes
      • Hashing in Java
      • Lab – Hashing in JCA
  • Confidentiality protection
    • Symmetric encryption
      • Block ciphers
      • Modes of operation
      • Modes of operation and IV – best practices
      • Symmetric encryption in Java
      • Lab – Symmetric encryption in JCA
      • Asymmetric encryption
        • The RSA algorithm
          • Using RSA – best practices
          • RSA in Java
          • Lab – Using RSA in JCA
        • Elliptic Curve Cryptography
          • The ECC algorithm
          • Using ECC – best practices
          • ECC in Java
          • Lab – Using ECC in JCA
        • Combining symmetric and asymmetric algorithms
  • Integrity protection
    • Message Authentication Code (MAC)
      • Calculating MAC in Java
      • Lab – Using MAC in JCA
    • Digital signature
      • Digital signature with RSA
      • Digital signature with ECC
      • Digital signature in Java
      • Lab – Digital signature in JCA
  • Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
    • Some further key management challenges
    • Certificates
      • Chain of trust
      • Certificate management – best practices

Common software security weaknesses

  • Code quality
    • Data handling
      • Initialization and cleanup
        • Constructors and destructors
        • Class initialization cycles
        • Lab – Initialization cycles
      • Unreleased resource
        • The finalize() method – best practices
    • Object oriented programming pitfalls
      • Accessibility modifiers
        • Are accessibility modifiers a security feature?
        • Accessibility modifiers – best practices
        • Overriding and accessibility modifiers
      • Inheritance and overriding
      • Mutability
        • Lab – Mutable object
      • Cloning

Using vulnerable components

  • Assessing the environment
  • Hardening
  • Vulnerability management
    • Patch management
    • Vulnerability databases
    • Lab – Finding vulnerabilities in third-party components

Wrap up

  • Secure coding principles
    • Principles of robust programming by Matt Bishop
    • Secure design principles of Saltzer and Schröder
  • And now what?
    • Software security sources and further reading
    • Java resources

Prices & Delivery methods

Online Training

Duration
3 days

Price
  • US$ 2,250
Classroom Training

Duration
3 days

Price
  • United States: US$ 2,250

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This is an Instructor-Led Classroom course
Instructor-led Online Training:   This is an Instructor-Led Online (ILO) course. These sessions are conducted via WebEx in a VoIP environment and require an Internet Connection and headset with microphone connected to your computer or laptop.
This is a FLEX course, which is delivered simultaneously in two modalities. Choose to attend the Instructor-Led Online (ILO) virtual session or Instructor-Led Classroom (ILT) session.

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