Rationale
The CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java The Java Coding Guidelines focuses on the Java SE 6 7 Platform environment and includes guidelines that address the issue of secure coding using the Java SE 6 7 API. The Java Language Specification (3rd edition) : Java SE 7 Edition [JLS 20052011] prescribes the behavior of the Java programming language and serves as the primary reference for the development of this standardthese guidelines.
Traditional languages such as C and C++ allow unspecified or implementation-defined behavior, which leads to vulnerabilities when a programmer makes assumptions about the underlying behavior of an API or language construct. The Java Language Specification, by contrast, standardizes language requirements where possible, because Java is designed to be a cross-platform language. Even then, certain behaviors are left to the discretion of the implementer of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or the Java compiler. This standard identifies These guidelines identify such language peculiarities and suggests suggest solutions to help the implementers address the issues and let programmers appreciate and understand the limitations of the language and navigate around them.
Focusing only on language issues does not translate to writing reliable and secure software. Design issues in Java APIs sometimes lead to their deprecation. At other times, the APIs or the relevant documentation may be interpreted incorrectly by the programming community. This standard identifies These guidelines identify such problematic APIs and highlights highlight their correct use. Examples of commonly used faulty design patterns and idioms are also included.
The Java language, its core and extension APIs, and the JVM provide several security features, such as the security manager and access controller, cryptography, automatic memory management, strong type checking, and bytecode verification. These features provide sufficient security for most applications, but their proper use is of paramount importance. This standard highlights These guidelines highlight the pitfalls and caveats associated with the security architecture and stresses on stress its correct implementation. Adherence to this standard safeguards these guidelines safeguard trusted programs from a plethora of exploitable security bugs that can cause denial of service, information leaks, erroneous computations, and privilege escalation.
A section dedicated to securing the runtime environment helps enforce many of the guidelines. Software that complies with this standard provides its users the ability to define fine-grained security policies and safely execute trusted mobile code on an untrusted system.
Included Libraries
Included Libraries
<Note. This diagram needs to be replaced by the one from http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/ (or removed altogether).>
These coding guidelines address This secure coding standard addresses security issues primarily applicable to the lang and util base libraries as well as for "other base libraries." This standard avoids They avoid the inclusion of open bugs that have already been marked to be fixed or those that do not have any security ramifications. A functional bug is only included if it is likely to occur with high frequency, causes considerable security concerns, or affects most Java technologies that rely on the core platform. This standard is These guidelines are not limited to security issues specific to the Core API but also includes important reliability and security concerns pertaining to the standard extension APIs (javax package).
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A number of issues are not addressed by this secure coding standard.
Content
This These coding standard does guidelines do not address concerns specific to only one Java-based platform but applies apply broadly to all platforms. For example, guidelines that are applicable to Java Micro Edition (ME) or Java Enterprise Edition (EE)) alone and not to Java Standard Edition (SE) are typically not included. In Java SE, APIs that deal with the user interface (user interface toolkits) or the web interface for providing features such as sound, graphical rendering, user account access control, session management, authentication, and authorization, are beyond the scope of this standardthese guidelines. However, this does not preclude the standard guidelines from discussing networked Java systems in light of the risks associated with improper input validation and injection flaws and suggesting appropriate mitigation strategies. This standard assumes These guidelines assume that the functional specification of the product correctly identifies and prevents higher-level design and architectural vulnerabilities.
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Coding style issues are subjective, and it has proven impossible to develop a consensus on appropriate style guidelines. Consequently, the CERT Oracle Secure Coding standard for Java the Java Coding Guidelines does not require any particular coding style to be enforced but only that the user defines style guidelines and applies these guidelines consistently. The easiest way to consistently apply a coding style is with the use of a code formatting tool. Many integrated development environments (IDEs) provide such capabilities.
Tools
As Because of the nature of the guidelines, many of them are not subject to automatic detection or correction. Furthermore, as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is not in a position to recommend particular vendors or tools to enforce the restrictions adopted. The user of this document is free to choose tools, and vendors are encouraged to provide tools to enforce the guidelines.
Controversial Guidelines
In general, the CERT secure coding standards try the Java Coding Guidelines tries to avoid the inclusion of controversial guidelines that lack a broad consensus.