Desktop application security in Java

Java developers working on desktop applications

• 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 supports security
• Learning how to use cryptographic APIs correctly in Java

General Java development

Day 1:

• Cyber security basics
  • What is security?
  • Threat and risk
  • Cyber security threat types
  • Consequences of insecure software
• Input validation
  • Input validation principles
    • Blacklists and whitelists
    • Data validation techniques
    • What to validate – the attack surface
    • Where to validate – defense in depth
    • When to validate – validation vs transformations
    • Output sanitization
    • Encoding challenges
    • Unicode challenges
    • Validation with regex
    • Regular expression denial of service (ReDoS)
    • Lab – ReDoS in Java
    • Dealing with ReDoS
  • 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
  • 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
    • Lab – Path traversal
    • Path traversal-related examples
    • Additional challenges in Windows
    • Virtual resources
    • Path traversal best practices
    • Lab – Path canonicalization
  • Unsafe reflection
    • Reflection without validation
    • Lab – Unsafe reflection
  • Unsafe native code
    • Native code dependence
    • Lab – Unsafe native code
    • Best practices for dealing with native code

Day 2:

• Security features
  • Authentication
    • Authentication basics
    • Multi-factor authentication
    • Authentication weaknesses
    • Case study – PayPal 2FA bypass
    • 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
        • 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
          • Lab – Using secret-handling classes in Java
  • Authorization
    • Access control basics
  • Information exposure
    • Exposure through extracted data and aggregation
    • Case study – Strava data exposure
  • Platform security
    • 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
      • 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
    • Clipboard
• Time and state
  • Race conditions
    • File race condition
      • Time of check to time of usage – TOCTTOU
      • TOCTTOU attacks in practice
      • Insecure temporary file
    • Database race conditions
• 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
    • Lab – Exception handling mess

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
      • Lab – Using random numbers in Java
      • Case study – Equifax credit account freeze
    • 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
    • Combining symmetric and asymmetric algorithms
  • Integrity protection
    • Message Authentication Code (MAC)
      • Calculating MAC in Java
      • Lab – Calculating MAC in JCA
    • Digital signature
      • Digital signature with RSA
      • Elliptic Curve Cryptography
        • ECC basics
        • Digital signature with ECC
      • Digital signature in Java
        • Lab – Digital signature with ECDSA in JCA
  • Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
    • Some further key management challenges
    • Certificates
      • Certificates and PKI
      • X.509 certificates
      • Chain of trust
      • PKI actors and procedures
      • Certificate revocation
• Common software security weaknesses
  • Code quality
    • Code quality and security
    • 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
• 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