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Oracle® Application Server Security Guide
10g Release 2 (10.1.2) B13999-03 |
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Oracle® Application Server Security Guide
10g Release 2 (10.1.2) B13999-03 |
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authentication
The process of verifying the identity of a user, device, or other entity in a computer system, often as a prerequisite to granting access to resources in a system. A recipient of an authenticated message can be certain of the message's origin (its sender). Authentication is presumed to preclude the possibility that another party has impersonated the sender.
availability
The percentage or amount of scheduled time that a computing system provides application service.
certificate
Also called a digital certificate. An ITU x.509 v3 standard data structure that securely binds an identity to a public key.
A certificate is created when an entity's public key is signed by a trusted identity, a certificate authority. The certificate ensures that the entity's information is correct and that the public key actually belongs to that entity.
A certificate contains the entity's name, identifying information, and public key. It is also likely to contain a serial number, expiration date, and information about the rights, uses, and privileges associated with the certificate. Finally, it contains information about the certificate authority that issued it.
certificate authority
A trusted third party that certifies that other entities—users, databases, administrators, clients, servers—are who they say they are. When it certifies a user, the certificate authority first seeks verification that the user is not on the certificate revocation list (CRL), then verifies the user's identity and grants a certificate, signing it with the certificate authority's private key. The certificate authority has its own certificate and public key which it publishes. Servers and clients use these to verify signatures the certificate authority has made. A certificate authority might be an external company that offers certificate services, or an internal organization such as a corporate MIS department.
ciphertext
Data that has been encrypted. Cipher text is unreadable until it has been converted to plain text (decrypted) with a key. See decryption.
cipher suite
A set of authentication, encryption, and data integrity algorithms used for exchanging messages between network nodes. During an SSL handshake, for example, the two nodes negotiate to see which cipher suite they will use when transmitting messages back and forth.
cryptography
The art of protecting information by transforming it (encrypting) into an unreadable format (ciphertext). See encryption.
decryption
The process of converting the contents of an encrypted message (ciphertext) back into its original readable format (plaintext).
DES
Data Encryption Standard. A commonly used symmetric key encryption method that uses a 56-bit key.
de-militarized zone (DMZ)
A DMZ is a set of machines that are isolated from the internet by a firewall on one side, and from a company's intranet by a firewall on the other side. This set of machines are viewed as semi-secure. They are protected from the open Internet, but are not completely trusted like machines that are inside the second firewall and part of the company's intranet. In a typical application server configuration with a DMZ, only the Web listener and the static content for the Web site are placed in the DMZ. All business logic, databases, and other critical data and systems in the intranet are protected.
Diffie-Hellman key negotiation algorithm
This is a method that lets two parties communicating over an insecure channel to agree upon a random number known only to them. Though the parties exchange information over the insecure channel during execution of the Diffie-Hellman key negotiation algorithm, it is computationally infeasible for an attacker to deduce the random number they agree upon by analyzing their network communications. Oracle Advanced Security uses the Diffie-Hellman key negotiation algorithm to generate session keys.
directory information tree (DIT)
A hierarchical tree-like structure consisting of the DNs of the directory entries. See distinguished name (DN).
distinguished name (DN)
The unique name of a directory entry. It comprises all of the individual names of the parent entries back to the root.
encryption
The process of disguising a message thereby rendering it unreadable to any but the intended recipient. Encryption is performed by translating data into secret code. There are two main types of encryption: public-key encryption (or asymmetric-key encryption) and symmetric-key encryption. See symmetric-key cryptography.
entry
In the context of a directory service, entries are the building blocks of a directory. An entry is a collection of information about an object in the directory. Each entry is composed of a set of attributes that describe one particular trait of the object. For example, if a directory entry describes a person, that entry can have attributes such as first name, last name, telephone number, or e-mail address.
failover
The ability to reconfigure a computing system to utilize an alternate active component when a similar component fails.
fault tolerance
The ability of a computing system to withstand faults and errors while continuing to provide the required services.
hot standby
A second running computing system that is ready to pick up application processing in the event that the primary computing system fails. That is, the secondary system takes over the processing at the point where the original computing system stopped and the secondary system continues the processing.
HTTPS protocol
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol. A protocol that uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt and decrypt user page requests as well as the pages that are returned by the origin server.
LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF)
The set of standards for formatting an input file for any of the LDAP command-line utilities.
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
A standard, extensible directory access protocol. It is a common language that LDAP clients and servers use to communicate. The framework of design conventions supporting industry-standard directory products, such as the Oracle Internet Directory.
localhost
Localhost is a special TCP/IP interface provided by the operating system which can only be used to communicate with processes that reside on the same machine. Because these connections do not need to leave a host, the information that is sent on such connections is never sent over the network. They are handled in a special manner by the operating system which guarantees that data that is sent on such connections originated from the local machine. These connections are considered immune to such attacks as IP spoofing, where a client fools the operating system into thinking that its IP address is different than it really is.
man-in-the-middle
A security attack characterized by the third-party, surreptitious interception of a message, wherein the third-party, the man-in-the-middle, decrypts the message, re-encrypts it (with or without alteration of the original message), and re-transmits it to the originally intended recipient—all without the knowledge of the legitimate sender and receiver. This type of security attack works only in the absence of authentication.
MD5
A hashing algorithm intended for use on 32-bit machines to create digital signatures. MD5 is a one-way hash function, meaning that it converts a message into a fixed string of digits that form a message digest.
message digest
Representation of text as a string of single digits. It is created using a formula called a one-way hash function.
one-way hash function
An algorithm that turns a message into a single string of digits. ÒOne wayÓ means that it is almost impossible to derive the original message from the string of digits. The calculated message digest can be compared with the message digest that is decrypted with a public key to verify that the message has not been tampered with.
Oracle Net
An Oracle product that enables two or more computers that run an Oracle database server or Oracle tools, such as Designer/2000 to exchange data through a third-party network. Oracle Net supports distributed processing and distributed databases. Oracle Net is an open system because it is independent of the communication protocol, and users can interface Oracle Net to many network environments.
PEM
Privacy-Enhanced Electronic Mail. An encryption technique that provides encryption, authentication, message integrity, and key management.
PGP
Pretty Good Privacy. An encryption technique that is based on public key cryptography. The PGP encryption package is free.
PKCS #12
A public-key encryption standard (PKCS). RSA Data Security, Inc., PKCS #12 is an industry standard for storing and transferring personal authentication credentials—typically in a format called a wallet.
private key
In public-key cryptography, this key is the secret key. It is primarily used for decryption but is also used for encryption with digital signatures. See public/private key pair.
public key
In public-key cryptography, this key is made public to all. It is primarily used for encryption but can be used for verifying signatures. See public/private key pair.
public-key cryptography
Encryption method that uses two different random numbers (keys). See public key and public-key encryption.
public-key encryption
The process where the sender of a message encrypts the message with the public key of the recipient. Upon delivery, the message is decrypted by the recipient using its private key.
public/private key pair
A set of two numbers used for encryption and decryption, where one is called the private key and the other is called the public key. Public keys are typically made widely available, while private keys are held by their respective owners. Though mathematically related, it is generally viewed as computationally infeasible to derive the private key from the public key. Public and private keys are used only with asymmetric encryption algorithms, also called public-key encryption algorithms, or public-key cryptosystems. Data encrypted with either a public key or a private key from a key pair can be decrypted with its associated key from the key-pair. However, data encrypted with a public key cannot be decrypted with the same public key, and data encrypted with a private key cannot be decrypted with the same private key.
relative distinguished name (RDN)
The leftmost component in a directory entry's distinguished name (DN). See distinguished name (DN).
reliability
The ability of a computing system to operate without failing. Reliability is measured by mean-time-between-failures (MTBF).
RSA
A public-key encryption technology developed by RSA Data Security. The RSA algorithm is based on the fact that it is computationally expensive to factor very large numbers. This makes it mathematically unfeasible, because of the computing power and time required, to decode an RSA key.
scalability
A measure of how well the software or hardware product is able to adapt to future business needs.
Secure Hash Algorithm
An algorithm that assures data integrity by generating a 160-bit cryptographic message digest value from given data. If as little as a single bit in the data is modified, the Secure Hash Algorithm checksum for the data changes. Forgery of a given data set in a way that will cause the Secure Hash Algorithm to generate the same result as that for the original data is considered computationally infeasible.
An algorithm that takes a message of less than 264 bits in length and produces a 160-bit message digest. The algorithm is slightly slower than MD5, but the larger message digest makes it more secure against brute-force collision and inversion attacks.
Secure Shell (SSH)
SSH is a well-known protocol and has widely available implementations that provide a secure connection tunneling solution, very similar to what port tunneling offers. SSH provides a daemon on both the client and server sides of a connection. Clients connect to the local daemon rather than connecting directly to the server. The local SSH daemon then establishes a secure connection to the daemon on the server side. Communication is then routed from the client, through the client side daemon to the server side daemon and then on to the actual server. This allows a client/server program that uses an insecure protocol to be tunneled through a secure channel. For our purposes, the disadvantage of SSH is that it requires two hops to occur and that the implementations available do not perform and scale well enough. More information on SSH can be obtained from the sites http://www.ssh.com and http://www.openssh.com.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
A protocol developed by Netscape Corporation. SSL is an industry-accepted standard for network transport layer security. SSL provides authentication, encryption, and data integrity, in a public key infrastructure (PKI). By supporting SSL, OracleAS Web Cache is able to cache pages for HTTPS protocol requests.
single key-pair wallet
A PKCS #12-format wallet that contains a single user certificate and its associated private key. The public key is embedded in the certificate.
The ability of a user to authenticate once, combined with strong authentication occurring transparently in subsequent connections to other databases or applications. Single sign-on lets a user access multiple accounts and applications with a single password, entered during a single connection. Single password, single authentication.
symmetric-key cryptography
Encryption method that uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt data using a mathematical formula.
trusted certificate
A trusted certificate, sometimes called a root key certificate, is a third-party identity that is qualified with a level of trust. The trusted certificate is used when an identity is being validated as the entity it claims to be. Typically, the certificate authorities you trust are called trusted certificates. If there are several levels of trusted certificates, a trusted certificate at a lower level in the certificate chain does not need to have all of its higher level certificates verified again.
wallet
Also called a digital wallet. A wallet is a data structure used to store and manage security credentials for an individual entity. It implements the storage and retrieval of credentials for use with various cryptographic services. A wallet resource locator (WRL) provides all the necessary information to locate the wallet.
wallet resource locator
A wallet resource locator (WRL) provides all necessary information to locate a wallet. It is a path to an operating system directory that contains a wallet.
