Question about password to protect private key in IdpCredentials

[WULMS Alexander]

We mainly use obfuscation (where possible) to protect against the so-called insider threat. It is combined with several other organisational and technical measures like segregation of roles and responsibilities, access controls, auditing policies and so on. You are right that it does not provide 100% protection but the combination of measures does raise the barrier.

-----Original Message-----
From: users-bounces at shibboleth.net [mailto:users-bounces at shibboleth.net] On Behalf Of Chad La Joie
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 6:30 PM
To: Shib Users
Subject: Re: Question about password to protect private key in IdpCredentials

No, there is it.  Obfuscating the password is pretty much useless.
Obviously the IdP will need to be able to reverse whatever
transformation occurs that means it'll need Java code to do it and
Java code is incredibly easy to decompile.  So, obfuscating offers no
real added security benefits.  If people compromise your host, you're
done, end of story.

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 10:54, WULMS Alexander
<Alexander.WULMS at swift.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> The IdPCredentials element (using the Filesystem X.509 Credential type)
> supports usage of a password protected private key in order to sign the SAML
> Response, whereby the password is stored in the (relying party)
> configuration file.
>
>
>
> Is there a means to use an obfuscated password instead, whereby I would use
> a (custom) java class to perform the de-obfuscation of the obfuscated
> password stored in the config file? I suppose I could extend the
> FilesystemX509CredentialBeanDefinitionParser class but which plugin point
> should I start from and how much risk do I have on running into future
> upgrade issues, knowing that this class is not part of the public API?
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks and brs,
>
> Alex
>
>
>
> Alex Wulms
> Lead Developer, Swift.com development
> Tel: + 32 2 655 3931
>
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-- 
Chad La Joie
www.itumi.biz
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