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It is common for developers to separate the program logic into different Developers often separate program logic across multiple classes or files to encourage modularity and re-usability. Unfortunately, this often imposes maintenance hurdles such as ensuring that the superclass does not change and in turn indirectly affect subclass behavior in undesired ways.

For instance, the introduction of the entrySet method in the superclass java.util.Hashtable in JDK 1.2, left the java.security.Provider class vulnerable to malicious deletion of entries due to absence of security manager checks. \Add Reference

Noncompliant Code Example

modularize code and to increase reusability. When developers modify a superclass (during maintenance, for example), the developer must ensure that changes in superclasses preserve all the program invariants on which the subclasses depend. Failure to maintain all relevant invariants can cause security vulnerabilities.

Noncompliant Code Example

In this code example, a class Account stores banking-related information without any inherent security. Security is delegated to the subclass BankAccount. The client application is required to use BankAccount because it contains the security mechanismThis noncompliant example shows a class SuperClass that stores banking related information but delegates the security manager and input validation tasks to the class SubClass. The client application has to use SubClass since it contains authentication mechanisms as well. A new method called overdraft is added by the maintainer of class SuperClass and the extending class SubClass is not aware of this change. This exposes the client application to malicious invocations such as ones using the overdraft method on the currently in-use object. All security checks are deemed useless in such cases.

class SuperClassAccount { 
  //Main BankMaintains class maintains allall banking-related data such duringas programaccount executionbalance
  private double balance =0 100;
 
  protected boolean withdraw(double amount) {
    if ((balance - amount) >= 0) {
	      balance -= amount;
	 return true;	 
  }
 
  protected void overdraft() {  //this method was added at a later date
	;
      System.out.println("Withdrawal successful. The balance is : "
                         + balance);
      return true;
    }
    return false;
  }
}

public class BankAccount extends Account { 
  // Subclass handles authentication
  @Override boolean withdraw(double amount) {
    if (!securityCheck()) {
      throw new IllegalAccessException();
    }
    return super.withdraw(amount);
  }

  private final boolean securityCheck() {
    // Check that account management may proceed
  }
}

public class Client {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Account account = new BankAccount();
    // Enforce security manager check
    boolean result = account.withdraw(200.0);   
    System.out.println("Withdrawal successful? " + result);
  }
}

At a later date, the maintainer of the Account class added a new method called overdraft(). However, the BankAccount class maintainer was unaware of the change. Consequently, the client application became vulnerable to malicious invocations. For example, the overdraft() method could be invoked directly on a BankAccount object, avoiding the security checks that should have been present. The following noncompliant code example shows this vulnerability:

class Account { 
  // Maintains all banking-related data such as account balance
  private double balance = 100;

  boolean overdraft() {
    balance += 300;     //add Add 300 in case there is an overdraft
	    System.out.println("Added back-up amount. The balance is :" 
                       + balance);
    return true;
  }

  // Other Account methods
}

public class SubClassBankAccount extends SuperClass {	//all users has to subclass this to proceed
  public boolean withdraw(double amount) {
    // inputValidationAccount { 
  // Subclass handles authentication
  // NOTE: unchanged from previous version
  // NOTE: lacks override of overdraft method
}

public class Client {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Account account = new BankAccount();
    // Enforce security manager check
    boolean result = account.withdraw(200.0);   
    if (!result) {
      result = account.overdraft();
    }
    System.out.println("Withdrawal successful? " + result);
  }
}

Although this code works as expected, it adds a dangerous attack vector. Because the overdraft() method has no security check, a malicious client can invoke it without authentication:

public class MaliciousClient {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Account account = new BankAccount();
    // securityManagerCheck No security check performed
    boolean result = account.overdraft();
    System.out.println("Withdrawal successful? " + result);
  }
}

Compliant Solution

In this compliant solution, the BankAccount class provides an overriding version of the overdraft() method that immediately fails, preventing misuse of the overdraft feature. All other aspects of the compliant solution remain unchanged.

class BankAccount extends Account {
  // ...
  @Override boolean overdraft() { // Override
  Login by checkingthrow new IllegalAccessException();
  }
}

Alternatively, when the intended design permits the new method in the parent class to be invoked directly from a subclass without overriding, install a security manager check directly in the new method.

Noncompliant Code Example (Calendar)

This noncompliant code example overrides the methods after() and compareTo() of the class java.util.Calendar. The Calendar.after() method returns a boolean value that indicates whether or not the Calendar represents a time after that represented by the specified Object parameter. The programmer wishes to extend this functionality so that the after() method returns true even when the two objects represent the same date. The programmer also overrides the method compareTo() to provide a "comparisons by day" option to clients (for example, comparing today's date with the first day of the week, which differs among countries, to check whether it is a weekday).

class CalendarSubclass extends Calendar {
  @Override public boolean after(Object when) {credentials using database and then call a method in SuperClass 
    // that updates the balance field to reflect current balance, other details
 Correctly calls Calendar.compareTo()
    if (when instanceof Calendar && 
        super.compareTo((Calendar) when) == 0) {
      return true;
   }			
  }
    return super.after(when);
  }

  @Override public voidint doLogiccompareTo(SuperClass sc,double amountCalendar anotherCalendar) {
    return compareDays(this.getFirstDayOfWeek(),
                       scanotherCalendar.withdrawgetFirstDayOfWeek(amount));
  }
}

public class Affect {
  private int compareDays(int currentFirstDayOfWeek,
                          int anotherFirstDayOfWeek) {
    return (currentFirstDayOfWeek > anotherFirstDayOfWeek) ? 1
           : (currentFirstDayOfWeek == anotherFirstDayOfWeek) ? 0 : -1;
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SuperClassCalendarSubclass sccs1 = new CalendarSubclass();
    cs1.setTime(new SubClass();  //override Date());
    // Date of last Sunday (before now)
    cs1.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, Calendar.SUNDAY);
    // Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 EST 1969
    SubClassCalendarSubclass subcs2 = new SubClassCalendarSubclass();
    ///need instance of SubClass to call methods

    if(sc.withdraw(200.0)) { //validate and enforce security manager check 
      sc = new SuperClass(); //if allowed perform the withdrawal
      sub.doLogic(sc, 200.0); //pass the instance of SuperClass to use it
    }
    else
      System.out.println("You do not have permission/input validation failed!");	
      sc.overdraft(); //newly added method, has no security manager checks. Beware!
    }
}

Compliant Solution

Always keep the following postulates in mind:

...

 Expected to print true
    System.out.println(cs1.after(cs2));
  }

  // Implementation of other Calendar abstract methods
}

The java.util.Calendar class provides a compareTo() method and an after() method. The after() method is documented in the Java API Reference [API 2014] as follows:

The after() method returns whether this Calendar represents a time after the time represented by the specified Object. This method is equivalent to
compareTo(when) > 0
if and only if when is a Calendar instance. Otherwise, the method returns false.

The documentation fails to state whether after() invokes compareTo() or whether compareTo() invokes after(). In the Oracle JDK 1.6 implementation, the source code for after() is as follows:

public boolean after(Object when) {
  return when instanceof Calendar
         && compareTo((Calendar) when) > 0;
}

In this case, the two objects are initially compared using the overriding CalendarSubclass.after() method, which invokes the superclass's Calendar.after() method to perform the remainder of the comparison. But the Calendar.after() method internally calls the compareTo() method, which delegates to CalendarSubclass.compareTo(). Consequently, CalendarSubclass.after() actually calls CalendarSubclass.compareTo() and returns false.

The developer of the subclass was unaware of the implementation details of Calendar.after() and incorrectly assumed that the superclass's after() method would invoke only the superclass's methods without invoking overriding methods from the subclass. MET05-J. Ensure that constructors do not call overridable methods describes similar programming errors.

Such errors generally occur because the developer made assumptions about the implementation-specific details of the superclass. Even when these assumptions are initially correct, implementation details of the superclass may change without warning.

Compliant Solution (Calendar)

This compliant solution uses a design pattern called Composition and Forwarding (sometimes also called Delegation) [Lieberman 1986], [Gamma 1995]. The compliant solution introduces a new forwarder class that contains a private member field of the Calendar type; this is composition rather than inheritance. In this example, the field refers to CalendarImplementation, a concrete instantiable implementation of the abstract Calendar class. The compliant solution also introduces a wrapper class called CompositeCalendar that provides the same overridden methods found in the CalendarSubclass from the preceding noncompliant code example.

// The CalendarImplementation object is a concrete implementation
// of the abstract Calendar class
// Class ForwardingCalendar
public class ForwardingCalendar {
  private final CalendarImplementation c;

  public ForwardingCalendar(CalendarImplementation c) {
    this.c = c;
  }

  CalendarImplementation getCalendarImplementation() {
    return c;
  }

  public boolean after(Object when) {
    return c.after(when);
  }

  public int compareTo(Calendar anotherCalendar) {
    // CalendarImplementation.compareTo() will be called
    return c.compareTo(anotherCalendar);
  }
}

class CompositeCalendar extends ForwardingCalendar {
  public CompositeCalendar(CalendarImplementation ci) {
    super(ci);
  }

  @Override public boolean after(Object when) {
    // This will call the overridden version, i.e.
    // CompositeClass.compareTo();
    if (when instanceof Calendar && 
        super.compareTo((Calendar)when) == 0) {
      // Return true if it is the first day of week
      return true;
    }
    // No longer compares with first day of week;
    // uses default comparison with epoch
    return super.after(when); 
  }

  @Override public int compareTo(Calendar anotherCalendar) {
    return compareDays(
             super.getCalendarImplementation().getFirstDayOfWeek(),
             anotherCalendar.getFirstDayOfWeek());
  }

  private int compareDays(int currentFirstDayOfWeek, 
                          int anotherFirstDayOfWeek) {
    return (currentFirstDayOfWeek > anotherFirstDayOfWeek) ? 1
           : (currentFirstDayOfWeek == anotherFirstDayOfWeek) ? 0 : -1;
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    CalendarImplementation ci1 = new CalendarImplementation();
    ci1.setTime(new Date());
    // Date of last Sunday (before now)
    ci1.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, Calendar.SUNDAY);

    CalendarImplementation ci2 = new CalendarImplementation();
    CompositeCalendar c = new CompositeCalendar(ci1);
    // Expected to print true
    System.out.println(c.after(ci2));
  }
}

Note that each method of the class ForwardingCalendar redirects to methods of the contained CalendarImplementation class, from which it receives return values; this is the forwarding mechanism. The ForwardingCalendar class is largely independent of the implementation of the class CalendarImplementation. Consequently, future changes to CalendarImplementation are unlikely to break ForwardingCalendar and are also unlikely to break CompositeCalendar. Invocations of the overriding after() method of CompositeCalendar perform the necessary comparison by using the CalendarImplementation.compareTo() method as required. Using super.after(when) forwards to ForwardingCalendar, which invokes the CalendarImplementation.after() method as required. As a result, java.util.Calendar.after() invokes the CalendarImplementation.compareTo() method as required, resulting in the program correctly printing true.

...

Risk Assessment

Modifying a superclass without considering the effect on a subclass subclasses can introduce vulnerabilities. Subclasses that are developed with an incorrect understanding of the superclass implementation can be subject to erratic behavior, resulting in inconsistent data state and mismanaged control flow. Also, if the superclass implementation changes then the subclass may need to be redesigned to take into account these changes.

Automated Detection

TODO

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

References

\[[SCG 07|AA. Java References#SCG 07]\] Guideline 1-3 Understand how a superclass can affect subclass behavior 

Sound automated detection is not currently feasible.

Related Vulnerabilities

The introduction of the entrySet() method in the java.util.Hashtable superclass in JDK 1.2 left the java.security.Provider subclass vulnerable to a security attack. The Provider class extends java.util.Properties, which in turn extends Hashtable. The Provider class maps a cryptographic algorithm name (for example, RSA) to a class that provides its implementation.

The Provider class inherits the put() and remove() methods from Hashtable and adds security manager checks to each. These checks ensure that malicious code cannot add or remove the mappings. When entrySet() was introduced, it became possible for untrusted code to remove the mappings from the Hashtable because Provider failed to override this method to provide the necessary security manager check [SCG 2009]. This situation is commonly known as the fragile class hierarchy problem.

Related Guidelines

Bibliography

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Image Added Image Added Image AddedOBJ00-J. Declare data members private      06. Objects Orientation (OBJ)      OBJ02-J. Avoid using finalizers