book

Java™ Coding Guidelines: 75 Recommendations for Reliable and Secure Programs

Name: Java™ Coding Guidelines: 75 Recommendations for Reliable and Secure Programs
ISBN: 9780133439526

by Fred Long, Dhruv Mohindra, Robert C. Seacord, Dean F. Sutherland, David Svoboda

August 2013

Intermediate to advanced

304 pages

8h 16m

English

Addison-Wesley Professional

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About This eBook
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
Foreword
Preface
The CERT® Oracle® Secure Coding Standard for Java™Scope
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Chapter 1. Security
1. Limit the lifetime of sensitive data2. Do not store unencrypted sensitive information on the client side3. Provide sensitive mutable classes with unmodifiable wrappers4. Ensure that security-sensitive methods are called with validated arguments5. Prevent arbitrary file upload6. Properly encode or escape output7. Prevent code injection8. Prevent XPath injection9. Prevent LDAP injection10. Do not use the clone() method to copy untrusted method parameters11. Do not use Object.equals() to compare cryptographic keys12. Do not use insecure or weak cryptographic algorithms13. Store passwords using a hash function14. Ensure that SecureRandom is properly seeded15. Do not rely on methods that can be overridden by untrusted code16. Avoid granting excess privileges17. Minimize privileged code18. Do not expose methods that use reduced-security checks to untrusted code19. Define custom security permissions for fine-grained security20. Create a secure sandbox using a security manager21. Do not let untrusted code misuse privileges of callback methods

Chapter 2. Defensive Programming
22. Minimize the scope of variables23. Minimize the scope of the @SuppressWarnings annotation24. Minimize the accessibility of classes and their members25. Document thread-safety and use annotations where applicable26. Always provide feedback about the resulting value of a method27. Identify files using multiple file attributes28. Do not attach significance to the ordinal associated with an enum29. Be aware of numeric promotion behavior30. Enable compile-time type checking of variable arity parameter types31. Do not apply public final to constants whose value might change in later releases32. Avoid cyclic dependencies between packages33. Prefer user-defined exceptions over more general exception types34. Try to gracefully recover from system errors35. Carefully design interfaces before releasing them36. Write garbage collection–friendly code
Chapter 3. Reliability
37. Do not shadow or obscure identifiers in subscopes38. Do not declare more than one variable per declaration39. Use meaningful symbolic constants to represent literal values in program logic40. Properly encode relationships in constant definitions41. Return an empty array or collection instead of a null value for methods that return an array or collection42. Use exceptions only for exceptional conditions43. Use a try-with-resources statement to safely handle closeable resources44. Do not use assertions to verify the absence of runtime errors45. Use the same type for the second and third operands in conditional expressions46. Do not serialize direct handles to system resources47. Prefer using iterators over enumerations48. Do not use direct buffers for short-lived, infrequently used objects49. Remove short-lived objects from long-lived container objects
Chapter 4. Program Understandability
50. Be careful using visually misleading identifiers and literals51. Avoid ambiguous overloading of variable arity methods52. Avoid in-band error indicators53. Do not perform assignments in conditional expressions54. Use braces for the body of an if, for, or while statement55. Do not place a semicolon immediately following an if, for, or while condition56. Finish every set of statements associated with a case label with a break statement57. Avoid inadvertent wrapping of loop counters58. Use parentheses for precedence of operation59. Do not make assumptions about file creation60. Convert integers to floating-point for floating-point operations61. Ensure that the clone() method calls super.clone()62. Use comments consistently and in a readable fashion63. Detect and remove superfluous code and values64. Strive for logical completeness65. Avoid ambiguous or confusing uses of overloading
Chapter 5. Programmer Misconceptions
66. Do not assume that declaring a reference volatile guarantees safe publication of the members of the referenced object67. Do not assume that the sleep(), yield(), or getState() methods provide synchronization semantics68. Do not assume that the remainder operator always returns a nonnegative result for integral operands69. Do not confuse abstract object equality with reference equality70. Understand the differences between bitwise and logical operators71. Understand how escape characters are interpreted when strings are loaded72. Do not use overloaded methods to differentiate between runtime types73. Never confuse the immutability of a reference with that of the referenced object74. Use the serialization methods writeUnshared() and readUnshared() with care75. Do not attempt to help the garbage collector by setting local reference variables to null
Appendix A: Android
Glossary
References
Index

Overview

“A must-read for all Java developers. . . . Every developer has a responsibility to author code that is free of significant security vulnerabilities. This book provides realistic guidance to help Java developers implement desired functionality with security, reliability, and maintainability goals in mind.”–Mary Ann Davidson, Chief Security Officer, Oracle Corporation

Organizations worldwide rely on Java code to perform mission-critical tasks, and therefore that code must be reliable, robust, fast, maintainable, and secure. Java™ Coding Guidelines brings together expert guidelines, recommendations, and code examples to help you meet these demands.

Written by the same team that brought you The CERT® Oracle ® Secure Coding Standard for Java™, this guide extends that previous work’s expert security advice to address many additional quality attributes.

You’ll find 75 guidelines, each presented consistently and intuitively. For each guideline, conformance requirements are specified; for most, noncompliant code examples and compliant solutions are also offered. The authors explain when to apply each guideline and provide references to even more detailed information.

Reflecting pioneering research on Java security, Java™ Coding Guidelines offers updated techniques for protecting against both deliberate attacks and other unexpected events. You’ll find best practices for improving code reliability and clarity, and a full chapter exposing common misunderstandings that lead to suboptimal code.

With a Foreword by James A. Gosling, Father of the Java Programming Language

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