I am trying to figure out which framework/API would be best for implementing my web services (Java EE). The data being passed back and forth between client and web container needs to be super-secure, and so I'm even thinking of encrypting my data before it even gets wrapped up in a SOAP (or the secure equivalent to SOAP) message, regardless of what security services the framework provides me with.
I see there is the so-called XWS-Security but it seems that it is for securing legacy JAX-RPC services. I'd like the framework to be standards-compliant (WSS/OASIS, etc.) and neither deprecated or deprecating (current; compatible with the upcoming Java 7 release, etc.).
Is JAX-WS and JAX-RS secure by default? If not, is there a compatible "secure wrapper" framework that can be used to adapt an existing JAX-WS web service to implement a secure framework?
Any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated!
You should do two things, first secure the transport using SSL. If you control both the clients and the server then you can require 2-way SSL which would ensure that only trusted clients can connect.
Second you can implement WS security protocols. Web service security standards tend to deal with three things: Authentication, Digital Signatures and Encyption/Decyption (from the Spring-WS docs):
Authentication. This is the process of determining whether a principal is who they claim to be. In this context, a "principal" generally means a user, device or some other system which can perform an action in your application.
Digital signatures. The digital signature of a message is a piece of information based on both the document and the signer's private key. It is created through the use of a hash function and a private signing function (encrypting with the signer's private key).
Encryption and Decryption. Encryption is the process of transforming data into a form that is impossible to read without the appropriate key. It is mainly used to keep information hidden from anyone for whom it is not intended. Decryption is the reverse of encryption; it is the process of transforming of encrypted data back into an readable form.
There are a number of protocols/standards for each of these functions, and
there are a number of Java OSS projects that implement the various security protocols/standards in a reasonable, usable ways.
In particular I'd look at Sun's XWSS and APACHE WSS4J. Spring WS has implementations of both of these APIs, they also do a good job of describing the various components: http://static.springsource.org/spring-ws/sites/2.0/reference/html/security.html
If you just want to secure the content then use transport layer security, such as HTTPS. This will automatically encrypt WS request/responses and prevent evesdropping and malicious modification.
If you want to do any authentication/authorisation you might want to get the caller to sign the request too.
