Method and apparatus for preventing rogue implementations of a security-sensitive class interface

• US 7,337,318 B2
• Filed: 02/27/2003
• Issued: 02/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Chao, Ching-Yun, Birk, Peter Daniel, Chung, Hyen Vui
• Primary Examiner(s): Moazzami; Nasser
• Assistant Examiner(s): YALEW, FIKREMARIAM A
• Application Number:
  US10/376,113
• Publication Number:
  US 20040172530A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,825 Days
• Field of Search: 713/155, 713/167, 717/108, 717116-118
• US Class Current: 713/167
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/64 Protecting data integrity, e.g. using checksums, certificates or signatures

Abstract

A method and apparatus for preventing rogue implementations of a security-sensitive class interface are provided. With the method and apparatus, a unique identifier (UID) is created by a server process when the server process is started. Anytime the server process, i.e. a server runtime environment, instantiates a new credential object following start-up of the server process, the encrypted UID is placed into a private field within the new credential object. In addition, the UID is encrypted and stored in a private class of the server runtime environment. A verification class is provided within the server runtime environment which includes one or more methods that receive the credential object as a parameter and return true or false as to the validity of the credential object. These one or more methods determine the validity of the credential object by retrieving the encrypted UID from the private class stored in the server runtime environment, decrypting the UID and comparing it to the decrypted UID stored in the private field of the credential object. If the two UIDs match, a determination is made that the credential object was created by the server runtime environment rather than a rogue application. If the two UIDs do not match, or if there is no UID in the credential object, then a false result will be returned by the verification class.

Claims

1. A method in a data processing system for securing a server runtime environment, comprising:

generating a first unique identifier at startup of the server runtime environment, the first unique identifier being an identifier that is valid for the server runtime environment;

encrypting the first unique identifier;

storing the first unique identifier in a private location of the server runtime environment;

receiving a request to instantiate a first credential object from a requestor;

instantiating the first credential object, wherein the first unique identifier is inserted in a private field of the first credential object;

returning the first credential object to the requestor;

receiving a second credential object, wherein the second credential object contains a second uniquely encrypted unique identifier stored in a private field of the second credential object;

passing the second credential object as parameters to a verification class, wherein the verification class retrieves the encrypted first unique identifier from the private location of the server runtime environment and retrieves the uniquely encrypted second unique identifier from the private field of the second credential object;

decrypting the encrypted first unique identifier and the uniquely encrypted second unique identifier;

comparing the second unique identifier to the first unique identifier; and

validating the second credential object only if the second unique identifier matches the first unique identifier.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first unique identifier is a pseudo-randomly generated set of alphanumeric characters.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first unique identifier is stored in a private class of the server runtime environment.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein validating the second unique identifier to the first unique identifier includes performing a byte array comparison between the second unique identifier and the first unique identifier.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request to instantiate a second credential object; and

inserting the first unique identifier in a private field of the second credential object such that the first credential object and the second credential object include the same first unique identifier.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the server runtime environment is a Java 2 Security runtime environment.