Security Attacks on Jini

Introduction

Jini is a new distributed systems technology from Sun MicroSystems. It differs from other distributed systems such as CORBA in a number of ways

The reliance on the location of naming services is reduced by using multicast search methods
The reliance on strings to label services is reduced by using object-oriented class matching methods
Requirements for code implementations to exist on clients is reduced by using downloadable code from services

The ability to download code from one agent to another introduces a range of security issues. Any party that downloads code from a remote source may be attacked by that code. While many of the attacks can be addressed by the new security model in JDK 1.2, programmers and users of Jini systems need to be aware of the attacks that can be made, of the potential damage they can do, and what can be done to guard against attack.

This paper gives a survey of Jini attacks. Some of these are well-known in the Jini community, some are less well known. This paper is intended to be an "e;extensible document"e;: as new attacks or solutions are discovered the document will be modified to cover this information.

Jini Overview

Cause of the Problem

JDK 1.2 Security Model

Deficiencies of Current Model

Attacks by LookupServices

Attacks by Services

Attacks by Clients

Attacks on LookupServices

Attacks on Clients

Attacks on Services

Attacks on rmid

Jan Newmarch (http://pandonia.canberra.edu.au)