Here's how to deploy Keycloak in Tomcat, including setup details and issue resolution.

And now the question you've all been waiting for: can you use TCP AND HTTP2? Read on...

I am going to explain how to use Spring Security in a Spring MVC Application to authenticate and authorize users against user details stored in a MySQL Database.

An exploration of the difference between the concepts of microservices and microsegmentation.

Recently, the Developer Preview of Angular 2 was released. This has some essential changes compared to Angular 1.

Blocking APIs can hurt your applications performance. So does using Asynchronous EJBs help?

H2 as a memory database for Spring-based applications is lightweight, easy to use, and emulates other RDBMS with the help of JPA and Hibernate.

Introduction Here in this article we are trying to discuss about the finding reference object within stored procedure and also finding the calling procedure references. Hope you like it and it will be informative. What We Want Developers are writing several stored procedure almost every day. Sometimes developers need to know about the information such as what object is used within the stored procedure or from where (SP) the specified stored procedure call. This is the vital information for the developer before working on a particular stored procedure. Here we are representing a pictorial diagram to understand the nature of implementation. Now we have to answer some question 1. What are the DB Object used in Stored Procedure1 and there type. 2. In case of Store Procedure3 which procedure calls the Store Procedure3 So we are not going to read the Stored Procedure to find the answer. Suppose the each procedure have more than 3000 line. How We Solve the Answer To solve the answer first we take the example and create an example scenario to understand it. -- Base Table CREATE TABLE T1 (EMPID INT, EMPNAME VARCHAR(50)); GO CREATE TABLE T2 (EMPID INT, EMPNAME VARCHAR(50)); GO --1 CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Procedure1] AS BEGIN SELECT * FROM T1; SELECT * FROM T2; EXEC [dbo].[Procedure3]; END GO --2 CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Procedure2] AS BEGIN EXEC [dbo].[Procedure3]; END GO --3 CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Procedure3] AS BEGIN SELECT * FROM T1; END GO Now we are going to solve the question What are the DB Object used in Stored Procedure1 and there type. sp_depends Procedure1 In case of Store Procedure3 which procedure calls the Store Procedure3 SELECT OBJECT_NAME(id) AS [Calling SP] FROM syscomments WHERE [text] LIKE '%Procedure3%' GROUP BY OBJECT_NAME(id); Hope you like it.

LANDESK One Partnership Brings WinMagic's Encryption and Intelligent Key Management Solution, SecureDoc, to LANDESK Customers LONDON - 01 July, 2015 - LANDESK today announced it has certified and is now reselling WinMagic's suite of SecureDoc products as part of its LANDESK One Partner program. The integration between LANDESK Management Suite and WinMagic SecureDoc brings the encryption status of the organisation's devices into the LANDESK management database. Given the seemingly endless news of high-profile data theft, LANDESK's relationship with WinMagic, the global innovator in key management and full disk encryption, bolsters the LANDESK security management software portfolio by allowing customers to protect data at rest. This partnership allows system administrators and security professionals to utilise a single tool for querying and reporting on encryption status alongside any other hardware or software attribute, streamlining the visibility necessary to ensure the safety and security of the organisation's assets. "The partnership between LANDESK and WinMagic allows LANDESK customers to better utilize WinMagic's world-class encryption capabilities," said Steve Workman, vice president of strategy at LANDESK. "WinMagic's SecureDoc broadens and enriches LANDESK's security portfolio, giving users the peace of mind so they can do what they do best. WinMagic's approach to full disk encryption (FDE) was a main impetus for our partnership." WinMagic's SecureDoc encrypts data on various devices, closely manages encryption keys and enables seamless user authentication and data access, so encryption does not inhibit productivity. SecureDoc protects data on the endpoint, where the data is created, regardless of the device or platform where it's accessed or saved. By deploying WinMagic's SecureDoc as LANDESK's recommended FDE vendor and integrating SecureDoc reporting into the LANDESK console, LANDESK customers receive the following: Encryption transparency. SecureDoc reports on which devices are encrypted as part of LANDESK's comprehensive compliance reporting features, aiding in regulatory compliance. A single console view. This view that encompasses all endpoint security and encryption across all devices and all operating systems. It does all of this with transparent intelligent key management, allowing users to gain deep insight into their security. FDE technology. Being application-aware, WinMagic solutions not only manage the keys but also the related policy and configuration for endpoint encryption. A predefined integration between the companies' products has been certified and is immediately available to LANDESK customers who use WinMagic. LANDESK customers who do not have WinMagic can now contact their LANDESK representative to begin evaluating how WinMagic can improve their security. "LANDESK and WinMagic agree that managing security at the endpoint is vital to protecting sensitive data and ensuring compliance, and WinMagic's offering integrates seamlessly into LANDESK's suite of solutions," said Mark Hickman, COO of WinMagic. "With this partnership, WinMagic has earned the endorsement of LANDESK, a systems and security management software company trusted by numerous companies in many industries. It's a testament to the proven and widely deployed WinMagic solution." LANDESK One Partners provide solution integrations that support the LANDESK vision of user-centered service management and help customers tackle their most pressing issues and gain maximum value from their technology investments. For more information visit: www.landesk.com/partners/landesk-one.

introduction to explain why you have to use parameterized query to avoid sql injection over concatenated inline query it needs to know about sql injection. what does sql injection mean? it means when any end user send some invalid inputs to perform any crud operation or forcibly execute the wrong query into the database, those can be harmful for the database. harmful means ‘data loss’ or ‘get the data with invalid inputs. to know more, follow the below steps. step 1: create a table named ‘login’ in any database. create table user_login ( userid varchar(20), pwd varchar(20) ) now save some user credentials into the database for login purpose and select the table. insert into user_login values('rahul','bansal@123') insert into user_login values('bansal','rahul@123') step 2: create a website named ‘website1’. now i will create a login page named ‘default.aspx’ to validate the credentials from the ‘login’ table and if user is valid then redirect to it to the next page named ‘home.aspx’. add 2 textboxes for userid & password respectively and a button for login. add 2 namespaces in the .cs file of the ‘default.aspx’. using system.data.sqlclient; using system.data; now add the following code to validate the credentials from the database on click event of login button. protected void btn_login_click(object sender, eventargs e) { string constr = system.configuration.configurationmanager.connectionstrings["constr"].connectionstring; sqlconnection con = new sqlconnection(constr); string sql = "select count(userid) from user_login where userid='" + txtuserid.text + "' and pwd='" + txtpwd.text + "'"; sqlcommand cmd = new sqlcommand(sql, con); con.open(); object res = cmd.executescalar(); con.close(); if (convert.toint32(res) > 0) response.redirect("home.aspx"); else { response.write("invalid credentials"); return; } } add a new page named ‘home.aspx’. where any valid user will get welcome message. step 3: now run the ‘default’ page and log in with valid credentials. it will redirect to next page ‘home.aspx’ for valid user. note: here i have not used the textmode="password" property in password textbox to show the password. i have not used any input validations to explain my example. problem: now i will perform the sql injection with some invalid credentials with successful query execution and after that i will redirect to the next page ‘home.aspx’ as a valid user. i will enter a string in both textboxes like the following: ‘ or ‘1’=’1 now run the page and login with above string in both textboxes. it will redirect to next page name ‘home.aspx’ for valid user. see what happened. this is called sql injection in the hacking world. reason: it happened just because of the string and after filling this string in both textboxes orur sql query became like the following: select count(userid) from user_login where userid='' or '1'='1' and pwd='' or '1'='1' which will give the userid count and that is 2 in the table because 2 users are in ‘user_login’ table. it can be used in more ways like just fill the following string only in user id textbox and you will go the next page as valid user. or 1=1 - - and it will also give users count 2 because sqlquery will become like the following: select count(userid) from user_login where userid='' or 1=1 --' and pwd='' or '1'='1' note: the sign -- are for commenting the preceding text in sql. it can be more harmful or dangerous when the invalid user/hacker executes a script to drop all tables in the database or drop whole database. solution: to resolve this issue you have to do 2 things: always use parameterized query. input validations on client and server both side. sometimes if your input validation fail, then parameterized will not execute any scripted value. let’s see the example. protected void btn_login_click(object sender, eventargs e) { string constr = system.configuration.configurationmanager.connectionstrings["constr"].connectionstring; sqlconnection con = new sqlconnection(constr); string sql = "select count(userid) from user_login where userid=@userid and pwd=@pwd"; sqlcommand cmd = new sqlcommand(sql, con); sqlparameter[] param = new sqlparameter[2]; param[0] = new sqlparameter("@userid", txtuserid.text); param[1] = new sqlparameter("@pwd", txtpwd.text); cmd.parameters.add(param[0]); cmd.parameters.add(param[1]); con.open(); object res = cmd.executescalar(); con.close(); if (convert.toint32(res) > 0) response.redirect("home.aspx"); else { response.write("invalid credentials"); return; } } now if i run the page and try to login with sql scripts as done earlier. with ‘ or ‘1’=’1 with ' or 1=1 - - as you have seen parameterized didn’t execute the sql script but why? reason: the reason behind this the parameterized query would not be vulnerable and would instead look for a user id or password which literally matched the entire string. in other words ‘the sql engine checks each parameter to ensure that it is correct for its column and are treated literally, and not as part of the sql to be executed’. conclusion: always use parameterized query and input validations on client and server both side.

Persistence of model objects is a part of many Java projects and a part which deserves, and often gets, high test coverage as one of the key layer integration points in the code. However, I've often felt the testing paradigms for this can be cumbersome, often involving a large amount of setup with an equivalent amount of validation. This can be tedious to both create and maintain. As a solution to this I've been testing persistence with a different pattern; by combining both the exparity-stub and the hamcrest-bean library you can thoroughly test model persistence in a few lines of test code as per the snippet below; .. User user = aRandomInstanceOf(User.class); User saved = dao.save(user); assertThat(dao.getUserById(saved.getId()), theSameBeanAs(saved)); The test snippet above is small but in those few lines will thoroughly test that all fields in a graph can be persisted and retrieved without loss, that any JPA or other mapping is valid, and that your queries are valid. For a complete example we'll work through testing a simple DAO for storing and retrieving User objects using the in-memory H2 database for simplicity. The same example will work for any persistence mechanism. Before we get started with an example lets briefly outline what the libraries are and what they do. The Exparity-Stub Library The exparity-stub libraries provides a set of static methods for creating stubs of model objects, object graphs, collections, types, and primitive types. For our example we'll be creating random stubs because we want to completely fill the graph with junk data and check it can be written down. exparity-stub offers two approaches to this, the RandomBuilder or the BeanBuilder. The RandomBuilder provides a terser notation to create random objects with less code. For example: User user = RandomBuilder.aRandomInstanceOf(User.class); List users = RandomBuilder.aRandomListOf(User.class); String anyString = RandomBuilder.aRandomString(); Whereas the BeanBuilder provides a fluent interface with finer control for building individual objects and graphs, for example; User user = BeanBuilder.aRandomInstanceOf(User.class) .excludeProperty("Id").build(); For this example i'm going to use the BeanBuilder so I can exclude the User.Id property from being populated by the random builder. The Hamcrest-Bean Library The hamcrest-bean library is an extension library to the Java Hamcrest library. The hamcrest-bean library provides a set of matchers specifically for testing Java objects and object graphs and performs deep inspections of those objects. It supports exclusions and overrides to allow fine control, if required, of how matching of any property, path, or type is handled, for example: User expected = new User("Jane", "Doe"); assertThat(new User("John", "Doe"), BeanMatchers.theSameAs(expected).excludeProperty("FirstName")); A Sample Project The sample project I'll work through is persistence of a simple User object with a child list of UserComment objects. This simple graph will be persisted to a H2 database with hibernate handling the Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) mapping, and Java Persistence Annotation (JPA) used to mark-up the model. The Model Below are the two model classes; first the User class. package org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao; import java.util.*; import javax.persistence.*; @Entity @Table public class User { @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE) private Long id; private Date createTs; private String username, firstName, surname; @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER) private List comments = new ArrayList<>(); public Long getId() { return id; } public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; } public Date getCreateTs() { return createTs; } public void setCreateTs(Date createTs) { this.createTs = createTs; } public String getUsername() { return username; } public void setUsername(String username) { this.username = username; } public String getFirstName() { return firstName; } public void setFirstName(String firstName) { this.firstName = firstName; } public String getSurname() { return surname; } public void setSurname(String surname) { this.surname = surname; } public List getComments() { return comments; } public void setComments(List comments) { this.comments = comments; } } Followed by the UserComment class. package org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao; import java.util.Date; import javax.persistence.*; @Table @Entity public class UserComment { private Long id; private Date timestamp; @Transient private String text; private String title; public Date getTimestamp() { return timestamp; } public void setTimestamp(Date timestamp) { this.timestamp = timestamp; } public String getText() { return text; } public void setText(String text) { this.text = text; } public String getTitle() { return title; } public void setTitle(String title) { this.title = title; } } Followed by the UserComment class. package org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao; import java.util.Date; import javax.persistence.*; @Table @Entity public class UserComment { private Long id; private Date timestamp; @Transient private String text; private String title; public Date getTimestamp() { return timestamp; } public void setTimestamp(Date timestamp) { this.timestamp = timestamp; } public String getText() { return text; } public void setText(String text) { this.text = text; } public String getTitle() { return title; } public void setTitle(String title) { this.title = title; } } The Data Access Object (DAO) Next up we write our DAO layer. I've excluded the UserDAO interface from this post but it is available in the sample project ongithub .The full, if somewhat crude, implementation of the UserDAO is below. package org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao; import org.hibernate.boot.registry.StandardServiceRegistryBuilder; import org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration; import org.hibernate.*; public class UserDAOHibernateImpl implements UserDAO { private final SessionFactory factory; public UserDAOHibernateImpl(final String resourceFile) { this.factory = new Configuration() .addAnnotatedClass(User.class) .addAnnotatedClass(UserComment.class) .buildSessionFactory( new StandardServiceRegistryBuilder() .loadProperties(resourceFile) .build()); } @Override public User save(final User user) { Session session = factory.getCurrentSession(); Transaction txn = session.beginTransaction(); try { session.save(user); txn.commit(); } catch (final Exception e) { txn.rollback(); } return user; } @Override public User getUserById(Long userId) { Session session = factory.getCurrentSession(); Transaction txn = session.beginTransaction(); try { return (User) session.get(User.class, userId); } finally { txn.rollback(); } } } Integration Test And finally, onto our integration test. The hibernate.properties will create an instance of an in-memory database and create the necessary tables on instantiation of the DAO. hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.H2Dialect hibernate.connection.username=sa hibernate.connection.password= hibernate.connection.driver_class=org.h2.Driver hibernate.connection.url=jdbc:h2:mem:test hibernate.current_session_context_class=thread hibernate.cache.provider_class=org.hibernate.cache.internal.NoCacheProvider hibernate.show_sql=true hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=update The integration test is below. package org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao; import static org.exparity.hamcrest.BeanMatchers.theSameBeanAs; import static org.exparity.stub.bean.BeanBuilder.aRandomInstanceOf; import static org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat; import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.*; import org.junit.Test; public class UserDAOHibernateImplTest { @Test public void canSaveAUser() { User user = aRandomInstanceOf(User.class).excludeProperty("Id").build(); UserDAOHibernateImpl dao = new UserDAOHibernateImpl("hibernate.properties"); User saved = dao.save(user); User loaded = dao.getUserById(saved.getId()); assertThat(loaded, not(sameInstance(user))); assertThat(loaded, theSameBeanAs(user)); } } Let's break the test down step by step to see what each step is doing and why the test is put together this way. 1) Model Setup User user = aRandomInstanceOf(User.class).excludeProperty("Id").build(); Create a random instance of the User class and it's associates using exparity-stub. The instance will be populated with random data with the exception of the Id property. I've excluded the Id property so that is left null to test that the id is being generated in the database. 2) DAO Setup UserDAOHibernateImpl dao = new UserDAOHibernateImpl("hibernate.properties") Instantiate the DAO ready to be tested, passing in the property file to use for the test. The hibernate properties used will configure an in-memory instance of H2 and create the schema automatically. 3) Exercise the DAO User saved = dao.save(user); User loaded = dao.getUserById(saved.getId()); Save the random instance of the model set up in step (1) and then query the object back out again. 4) Verify the results assertThat(loaded, not(sameInstance(user))); assertThat(loaded, theSameBeanAs(user)); The first line verifies that the loaded User instance is not the same instance as the originally saved User. This prevents false positive results when the loaded instance is returned directly from a cache. The second line uses hamcrest-bean to perform a deep comparison of the loaded User instance against the original user instance. Running the Test The first run of the test yields an error; specifically a hibernate warning because a @Id annotation has been missed on UserComment. org.hibernate.AnnotationException: No identifier specified for entity: org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao.UserComment at org.hibernate.cfg.InheritanceState.determineDefaultAccessType(InheritanceState.java:277) at org.hibernate.cfg.InheritanceState.getElementsToProcess(InheritanceState.java:224) at org.hibernate.cfg.AnnotationBinder.bindClass(AnnotationBinder.java:775) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration$MetadataSourceQueue.processAnnotatedClassesQueue(Configuration.java:3845) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration$MetadataSourceQueue.processMetadata(Configuration.java:3799) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.secondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1412) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1846) at org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao.UserDAOHibernateImpl.(UserDAOHibernateImpl.java:15) at org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao.UserDAOHibernateImplTest.canSaveAUser(UserDAOHibernateImplTest.java:18) A fix to the UserComment object and we can run the test again. @Table @Entity public class UserComment { @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE) private Long id; private Date timestamp; @Transient private String text; private String title; ... After running the test again we get another failure. The presence of the @Transient annotation on the UserComment.text property is preventing the value being persisted java.lang.AssertionError: Expected: the same as but: User.Comments[0].Text is null instead of "mDAWDJXbheIHbbHLR1NNVJqAki49RvaVwQtKD38r79u0y3MTDD" at org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat(MatcherAssert.java:20) at org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat(MatcherAssert.java:8) at org.exparity.hamcrest.bean.sample.dao.UserDAOHibernateImplTest.canSaveAUser(UserDAOHibernateImplTest.java:19) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483) at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:47) Another change to the UserComment object to remove the @Transient annotation and we can run the test again. @Table @Entity public class UserComment { @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE) private Long id; private Date timestamp; private String text; private String title; ... After running the test again it all passes. Try It Out To try hamcrest-bean and exparity-stub out for yourself include the dependency in your maven pom or other dependency manager. org.exparity hamcrest-bean 1.0.10 test org.exparity exparity-stub 1.1.5 test

We’re going back to the classics this month, with the latest enterprise collaboration news round-up focussing on cloud strategy and considerations and benefits when it comes to implementing collaboration software. Mashable shared an infographic it created in conjunction with Hewlett Packard, which compiles data and research suggesting that the use of hybrid and private cloud computing is on the rise. The article quotes statistics from Rightscale, which states that 82% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy already, and of these 14% use multiple private clouds, 13% use multiple public clouds, and 55% use hybrid clouds. Mashable quotes Technology Business Research, which states that “there is continued migration of enterprise vendors in mature markets such as the U.S. to hybrid and private cloud platforms to provide software vendors an opportunity to generate adoption for management technologies, as customers require next-generation tools to manage heterogeneous IT infrastructures efficiently.” In his article for eWEEK, Chris Preimesberger outlines 10 ways IT and business leaders must collaborate on cloud strategies. Chris explains that a decision to use cloud services is no longer simply down to the IT department. During the last nine years, he says, entire businesses have become necessarily immersed in IT strategies in order to harness the cloud for economics, innovation, operations and growth. He shares a slide show which provides advice for how technical and business leaders can collaborate to build a secure cloud strategy. The slide show states that usage indicate that private clouds are expected to grow at double the rate of public cloud, a result of ongoing concerns about data security and privacy. Gary Audin asks the question cloud economics or flexibility? in his article for No Jitter. Gary explains that although the cost of cloud can be attractive, that might not be the real draw for enterprises. He states that knowing what costs to consider as part of a cloud service implementation is vital to making the right decision about cloud. Gary points out the benefits of the cloud as being far more than simply a matter of cost. He explains that the cloud allows rapid response for an enterprise as it contends with change due to situations such as staff growth or reduction, market fluctuations, financial limitations, or new opportunities. Above all, Gary explains, the cloud delivers flexibility and it is this which makes it the most attractive option for enterprises. In his article for MSP Mentor, Michael Brown reveals the result of a recent report on cloud adoption in the enterprise. The report, by Skyhigh Networks, revealed that enterprise cloud adoption grew by 43% in 2014. Michael highlights findings on the file sharing front, revealing that 37 percent of employees were found to be uploading sensitive business data to consumer file sharing services. Consumer file sharing services are one element of a growing trend towards BYOC (bring your own cloud, content and collaboration). Robert Bamforth explains that BYOC is an evolution of BYOD (bring your own device) which posed a challenge to IT departments since the rise of the smartphone. Robert explains that BYOC is a new challenge for IT departments in controlling their organisation’s digital assets while liberating employee productivity and information sharing. Robert states that the BYOC conundrum should change as enterprise-strength security features and tools continue to evolve to have more consumer-like interfaces, which will make asking employees to use enterprise tools much easier. He gives some suggestions to help enterprises in the mean time: understand the appeal of consumer tools, make sure everyone understands security risks, forget trying to apply strong rules to trivial information, get a mobile-ready solution, look for and pre-plug data leaks, and above all don’t stop collaboration if it’s happening. In his article for ZDNet, Dion Hinchcliffe reflects on the state of the digital collaboration industry. Far from maturing, Dion says, the collaboration tool space is busier than ever evolving, branching out, and multiplying. But, he asks, are organizations able to adopt so many different ways of working together? Dion observes that instead of settling down, the collaboration software space is actually get more interesting and varied, and he is seeing new technologies, such as applications that focus on optimizing collaboration for mobile devices or for team analytics. It’s now time for organizations to design a strong foundation for digital collaboration, says Dion, as the near future promises many key new innovations that must be considered and incorporated to stay competitive, both to customers and the workforce. When businesses do decide to adopt one or more digital collaboration platforms, Andre Bourque offers some helpful ways in which to measure ROI. Andre quotes a Mashable report which states that cloud collaboration drives creativity and engagement, leading to happier employees and a better company culture, but this is not a metric that is easily measurable. Andre explains that it’s hard to find definitive examples of ROI, as most are anecdotal or “in process”, and merely counting user adoption rate of a collaborative platform is inadequate. Instead, Andre quotes Angela Ashenden, of MWD Advisors, who offers the following metrics to consider: reduced travel time and costs; creating new business opportunities and services; increased employee retention rates, cost savings across the organisation, and faster on-boarding for new users. Do you have any metrics that you find useful to measure ROI on your collaboration platform in your organisation?

LastPass, the password manager that lets you manage your passwords between different devices, was recently hacked. From this there has been a fair amount of FUD circulating and not enough rational thought. With that in mind, this seems like a good time to talk about password security and LastPass with some rational ideas. Since we can't get rid of passwords just yet we need to manage them well. 1. LastPass Detected The Breach No useful system is impenetrable. Computers not connected to the Internet, that don't even have a network card, have been hacked across an air gap using their speakers and mic. The most up to date systems still suffer from zero-day exploits. Two of the elements of an organization that takes security seriously are keeping certain pieces of data separate and detecting when a breach occurs. From the LastPass announcement of the breach we can see these two things in action. While some information was obtained the actual vaults of passwords were not downloaded. And, they detected there was a problem and enough monitoring in place to distinguish what was effected. I can't overstate how nice that is to hear. Many organizations won't detect if they have been breached. Even many of those that could detect a breach wouldn't be able to tell you what was affected. That's right, many of the places you put personal information couldn't do what LastPass did. 2. LastPass Responded To The Breach Even though the password vaults were not taken LastPass is having everyone change their vault password. They detected the problem and are going the extra mile to protect their users. Now, let's consider an alternative option. Consider a 1Password or KeePass user who stores their information in Dropbox or a similar service. A malicious program on one of their systems could have taken their vault and sent it to an attacker. Those users would not have known. Or, the service could have been hacked but since it's not password specific who would have suggested changing the master password? I'm not trying to defend LastPass. It's a matter of considering the alternatives and the security measures around them. Is a 1Password or KeePass alternative setup actually more secure in practice? 3. Different Passwords For Different Sites There's a good reason to have a different password or passphrase for different sites. You can't trust that a site you submit it to will store it securely so that it won't be misused to access other sites. With all the sites we connect to we it's difficult to remember a different password for each site. Congratulations if you can do that. For the rest of us we need a system to help. This is where a password manager is useful. That is, until we can stop using passwords for something better. So, use a password manager if you can't otherwise have a different password for each site. It's more secure than using the same password everywhere. Note, I'm not recommending a particular password manager on purpose. Use a good one. 4. Security Is Not About Perfection There is no such thing as perfect security. Security needs to be practical. For example, for most people it's more security to use a password manager than to use the same password everywhere. Neither is perfect but when you weigh the differences the password manager comes out as more secure. In a distributed device world where we need passwords on more than one system it's good to go with a system that does this for you. A system that focuses on security and handling issues that come up. You could roll your own solution. But, will it be more secure? For most people the professional solution is the more secure one. When considering password security choose the one that's more secure for you rather than seeking the perfect option. 5. When Not To Use A Password Manager There are some places I would recommend not using a password manager. For example, I would recommend not using one for your financial sites. Those few places that are very important use a passphrase. 6. Encrypt Your Password Store In our multi-device world you'll likely need to share your password datastore between devices. And, any device can be hacked even if you don't need to use multiple devices. Imagine a virus on a computer looking for your password excel file and uploading that to someone bad. It happens. Use an encrypted datastore. This is why password managers are important. They are designed to store your data in an encrypted manner. This way, if someone gets your data store they will have a very hard time reading it. Before they can get to anything they'll need to break the encryption which isn't so easy. That means, even if an attacker had gotten the password vaults from LastPass, which they didn't, they would not have been able to read the data in them. 7. Limit Your Attack Vector One of the problems with LastPass is that they are a known password manager. That makes them a target if someone wants to try and get passwords. Alternatives that store their distributed information in general purpose systems pose a different attack vector. For example, if you use 1Password or KeePass and store your information in Dropbox you can still be hacked. Dropbox has been externally hacked in the past and other applications can access your Dropbox folder. Using alternatives to LastPass doesn't mean you won't be attacked. Take a few minutes and consider the attack vectors of the different solutions you're considering and how each of those will detect a breach and respond to that. For example, I could self host my encrypted file on the Internet somewhere. This would be managed by me and wouldn't be a known system for someone to target. But, the IPv4 addresses are regularly checked for known vulnerabilities so attackers and get onto a system a poke around. That is the entire IPv4 space, which is still the only space routable for all things, is regular checked. Will I keep everything on that system up to date? Will I detect if someone broke into the system? Will I respond appropriately? All of this needs to be taken into account. Final Thoughts On LastPass I'm not trying to defend LastPass. I'm trying to give a little more of a holistic picture of security. It's complicated and any alternatives to a LastPass or LastPass-like solutions need to have their security considered. Viewing the options with security and attacks in mind keeps everything in perspective.

If you are building mobile apps then you are connecting to some REST API. For example, if you want to resolve an address to a latitude/longitude information to display on a map, you might use the Google Geocoding API: Google Geocoding API: https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=San Francisco,CA&key=AIzaSyDvFMYGjeR02RH If you are invoking the API from the client, then the API key also has to be present on the client. But, this is also the problem. It’s very easy to look at the app source in the browser and get access to the API key. If someone has access to your API key, they can send requests on your behalf (without you knowing), and use up your request quota. Even if you are building a hybrid app, it’s still the same problem. A hybrid app is HTML/JavaScript inside a native wrapper, it’s possible to download the app, un-package it and gain access to API keys or any sensitive information stored in the app. Even native apps are not immune to this. For example, an Android app is just a Java application and a Java application can be de-compiled to view the original source. The next image shows how to get access to an API key in the browser: Viewing app source in browser A good solution is to never expose the API key (or any other sensitive data) on the client. How do you do that? You keep the API key and any other sensitive information on the server. Appery.io Secure Proxy Appery.io Secure Proxy (part of Backend Services) enables app developers to keep sensitive app data on the server. Your API keys or any other data is never exposed on the client. Watch this 5-minute video on how to use Secure Proxy: Before using the Secure Proxy, you need to store the data on the server. To store the data you are going to use the Appery.io Database. It’s as simple as creating a collection with two columns. The first column is the value name, the second column is the actual value. This is how the database looks when storing the API key for Google Geocoding API: Saving API key in database As this key is stored on the server, no one (but you) has access to it. You can store other data as well such as URLs, tokens or anything else that shouldn’t be exposed on the client. The next step is to setup the proxy that will use the information stored in the database. This step is also very simple, this is how it looks: Secure proxy linked to a database You give the proxy a name and then link it to a database which stores your data. The above proxy is linked to Secrets_db database, Credentials collection, and secretName, secretValue columns. The last step is to link a REST API service to the proxy. In the service editor you select the secure proxy created: REST API service using secure proxy then in the Request tab you reference the API key stored in the database (the name stored in secretName column): Request parameter substitution will happen on the server and that’s it. When the API service is invoked, the call will go through the secure proxy (server) where the API key will substituted: API key is not exposed on the client For web apps, you can add an extra layer of security by specifying from which page URLs the proxy should accept requests: URL-based security The proxy will only accept requests from page URLs listed in the table. Another option to keep API keys private is to invoke the API from the server using Server Code, I will cover this in another post. Setting up an using the Appery.io Secure Proxy is simple. It provides a very important feature by allowing to keep sensitive and private data on the server, never exposing it on the client, and adding an extra security layer to your app.

Every business has unique characteristics that set it apart from other organizations, even within the same industry. For this reason, it shouldn't be surprising that there's not a one-size-fits-all approach to app security testing. Each company has certain protection expectations and regulations to adhere to, making it essential to find the best way to achieve these goals. Here are a few examples of security testing methodologies available for quality assurance teams to leverage: Black box With black box testing, QA professionals put themselves in the shoes of the hacker and attempt to break the app through various attack vectors. This methodology can yield a lot of information and help better secure the program from actual threats. A white paper by Security Innovation noted that software testers first analyze the system's architecture and business model to identify any security vulnerabilities. Looking over the software logic in this way can uncover subtle security and privacy issues that may not have been noticed otherwise, such as defects in design, input, system dependency, authentication, cryptography and information disclosure. "Although white box code inspection is good for analyzing static behavior, only black box exploratory testing can determine the dynamic behavior of how a system is implemented and used, the coupling between systems and the interactions of the distributed systems," Security Innovation wrote. Dynamic For QA teams that like to execute code, dynamic testing is the approach for them. This methodology checks the running application for how it behaves and responds to a variety of inputs. This is done to ensure that the product meets up with established regulations and is giving the expected outcomes. IBM noted that dynamic analysis is especially useful to identify code coverage, as it can discover bugs in paths that have gone untested. While dynamic testing can be manual work for testers, it can also yield significant information that will help mitigate defects and produce quality products. Static In contrast to dynamic testing, static approaches directly review the source code, often through an automated test management solution. TechTarget contributor Michael Cobb noted that this methodology occurs at the implementation phase, rather than when the app is running, and often helps mitigate vulnerabilities involved with industry compliance standards. Automation in this area can reduce the amount of time it takes to complete these tasks. However, it may not be able to detect sophisticated threats, which can be supplemented by dynamic security testing. "A thorough source code review has an advantage over dynamic testing," Cobb wrote. "Nothing is hidden from analysts during a source code review, so they can examine exactly how data flows through a program. By solving the problem at the code level, static testing reduces the number of security-related design and coding defects, and the severity of any defects that make it through to the release version, thus dramatically improving the overall security of the application." There are a number of security testing methodologies that organizations can pursue, and designing a combination of approaches may result with a solution that's best for their needs. Using these strategies, companies can better ensure the protection of sensitive information while providing users with the software testing tools needed to succeed.

Last week’s Gartner IT Operations Strategies & Solutions Summit in Orlando, Fla., was exactly what you’d expect—a place to talk about the IT operations issues impacting some of the largest companies in the world. Even so, there were a few interesting surprises. Among them: 1. Bi-modal is big. Not everyone will succeed. Gartner continued to tell its customers to employ two modes of IT—a traditional, slower moving capability for older, typically internal systems of record; and a high-speed, experimental one for new, typically customer-facing Web and mobile apps. “This is a time of experimentation and innovation,” said Gartner VP and distinguished analyst Chris Howard in his opening keynote. Organizations can’t ignore that there are multiple speeds and they should participate in all. Gartner managing VPRonni Colville added that by 2017, 75% of IT orgs will have this “bi-modal” IT capability. See also: Bi-Modal IT: Gartner Endorses Both Disruptive and Conservative Approaches to Technology However, “50% will make a mess of it,” Colville said. Why? Not necessarily because of technology failings, but more often because of a lack of people skills. 2. IT success is all about people. Donna Scott, also a Gartner VP and distinguished analyst, told her keynote audience that “you will be judged on agility, speed, and innovation.” However, the biggest problems Gartner sees for infrastructure and operations team engagement and innovation are lack of time, company culture that’s not conducive to these approaches, and a lack of business skills in IT. More than half of the people responding to an in-room poll said “people” are the part of IT ops that must change first. Not technology. Gartner research director George Spafford underscored similar issues in large organizations trying to use DevOps at scale: people and “human factors” are the biggest concerns from his in-room poll. All these probably contributed to hiring best-selling author Daniel Pink as a keynote speaker on the opening day of the conference. His focus? Not IT or architecture. Instead, he pounded home the importance of influencing people and selling internally. 3. Big orgs are trying DevOps. But the issues are different at scale. In numerous sessions I saw many hands go up when analysts asked, “Who here is trying DevOps?” Clearly, the approach is getting traction in large companies. But there’s lots of learning still to do. In fact, that was Spafford’s biggest bit of advice. “Always be learning,” he said, “trying to see what works and what breaks, especially at scale.” And, even once you’ve had some initial success, keep learning. “If you’ve done ‪DevOps, stay humble,” he advised. 4. Looking to innovative organizations for ideas … analytics on the rise. Many sessions addressed how large organizations are taking on ideas fostered by smaller, more risk-tolerant companies, and offered advice for doing so successfully. In addition to multiple discussions of DevOps, an entire session was devoted to establishing your own “Genius Bar®—a “walk-up IT support center” as explained in this CIO article. As at previous conferences, Gartner research VP Cameron Haight ran several sessions on lessons learned from firms running massive, Web-scale IT systems. “You need lots of data … and access to it inexpensively,” he said. Some commercial monitoring companies (New Relic included!) got a shout out for taking the lessons of Web scale IT to heart in their offerings. In addition, Haight said, “Analytics are increasingly important for application performance monitoring given the huge amount of data now available.” 5. Cloud: Enterprises want it, but aren’t very good at it yet. Gartner research director Dennis Smith talked through the enterprise’s interest in cloud computing. A huge majority of his in-room poll wanted some mix of both public and private cloud, while only 9% wanted to use only a private cloud environment and a measly 4% were looking to move entirely to the public cloud. The most popular choice (41%) was an 80/20 split between private and public cloud infrastructure. “Enterprises don’t make the dean’s list,” for cloud usage, Smith said, earning no more than a C average in his opinion. Large organizations are doing well at visibility, governance, and delivering standardized stacks, he said, but are less skilled at optimizing for these new environments. Still, Smith said the trends point toward enterprises improving on all fronts. 6. Cloud security can be better than yours. Importantly, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst Neil MacDonald gave the cloud a vote of confidence: noting that, for a variety of reasons, “Well-managed public cloud can be more secure than your own data center.” For example, on-premise software can pose serious security risks, he said, because of “deployment lag” where customers are stuck using software releases with unpatched security vulnerabilities. With a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), security updates can be more quickly rolled out to all customers. But cloud security can be different, requiring a shift to information-level security from OS-level security. Best practices include doing away with a huge pool of all-powerful sysadmins in favor of JEA, or “just enough administration,” where sysadmins have just enough privileges to do their job, and no more. An analogous security practice for compute resources is “least privilege,” where apps and microservices can’t talk to each other unless they specifically need to do so. Audience polling supported MacDonald’s optimistic view of cloud security, which suggests that large enterprises may struggle less with their cloud policies moving forward. 7. Containers: Try ’em! Ahead of this week’s DockerCon in San Francisco, Gartner devoted significant airtime to educating the audience on containers and microservices. My summary of ‪Gartner VP and distinguished analyst Tom Bittman’s advice on containers was simple: Try ’em. Now. Complement them with VMs. ‪And Docker (the company) is important, but not the be-all and end-all in this space. Bittman (copping to some deja vu from Gartner presentations he made on server virtualization 13 years ago) noted that while virtualization has been focused on admin and ops functions, containers are focused on value for developers. But because containers are well suited for driving up VM utilization for workloads that share the same OS, we can expect to see more combinations of containers and server virtualization. Finally, Bittman underscored that Gartner doesn’t see containers having much impact on premise, but making a huge difference in the cloud. That doesn’t necessarily fit with what’s been shown in other research, such as this 2015 State of Containers Survey sponsored by VMblog.com and StackEngine, so we’ll want to watch how this plays out. This is all a lot to digest. The Gartner IT Operations Strategies & Solutions Summitacknowledges the importance of dealing with existing IT systems and practices as well as promising new technologies and thinking, and tries to point a way forward. In fact, Haight had a very good quote about microservices that I thought also served to wrap up the entire event: “If you want to run with the big dogs, you need to rethink application architecture,” he said. That can be very difficult for an enterprise to fully implement … but also very appealing. Note: Al Sargent contributed to this post. All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Server, tortoise and hare, business team, and cloud security images courtesy ofShutterstock.com.

New Integration Provides Seamless Connections Between Perforce Helix and Leading Application Lifecycle Management Systems WOKINGHAM, UK. (June 24, 2015) – Perforce Software, the leader in software configuration management (SCM) and collaboration, and Go2Group, an Atlassian Platinum and Enterprise Expert, today announced the Perforce ConnectALL Adapter. The new adapter for Go2Group’s ConnectALL ALM Router connects Perforce Helix to Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) systems supported by ConnectALL. The companies also announced that they have expanded their partnership, which first began in 2002. “Very few SCMs can handle binary data, and no other SCM solution supports large file formats that scale across globally distributed enterprises like Helix,” said Brett Taylor, president of Go2Group. “Our customers demand future-proof solutions, and with Perforce we know they don’t have to worry about outgrowing their systems—it will serve them well whether they’re a team of 50 or 50,000.” With the Perforce adapter, ConnectALL automatically synchronises data and workflow with other ALM systems and integrates ALM systems components within minutes. “We’re excited to be a part of the ConnectALL ecosystem of adapters and to enable companies to more easily design, configure, synchronise, manage, and monitor their integrations with Perforce,” said Dave Robertson, vice president of Channels at Perforce. “We’re glad to extend our partnership with Go2Group to new technologies and markets.” Go2Group is part of Perforce’s network of sales partners across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and India. Perforce partners serve customers in more than 100 countries worldwide. The Perforce ConnectALL Adapter is available for purchase from the Go2Group website.

An effective governance framework is essential for a well-managed intranet. It can be the deciding factor between a good user experience, greatly valued, and a poor user experience with little benefit. Every intranet is different depending on the size, type, and culture of the organisation it supports. However, there are some key governance principles that are common to their success. Recently I spoke at Intranatverk about this based on my book ‘Digital success or digital disaster?‘ which is a practical, experience-based approach to growing and managing a successful intranet. My slides ‘7 principles of good intranet governance’ are avilable for you to share. The alternative to governance can be chaotic anarchy. Posing risks to security and intellectual property provides an awful experience for those who still use your intranet. Where governance can start to get confusing and difficult is in how it is applied. Applying these governance principles leads to a good outcome: Know your organisation Define the scope Put people first Use all resources Compare and benchmark Do what you say you will do Keep it legal Think about how you build a house with the foundations, walls, floors, windows, doors and finally the roof. It would not make sense for you to have windows, doors, and a roof only. The same applies to your governance framework. These principles for good governance are not like a menu that you choose which items to have and leave others alone. You need to follow all of these to build a strong foundation to improve your intranet and implement your strategy. Read the introductory chapter of my new governance book to find out more. A license to share the ebook within your whole organisation is also available.

Mobile app development has become vital for enterprises as they look to support new devices (phones, tablets, wearables, etc.) for internal use while also reaching out to their increasingly mobile customers. This approach makes sense: According to a comScore report, the number of mobile Internet users outnumbered desktop ones for the first time at some point in late 2013, and has since achieved significant separation. Many companies have responded to this change by implementing bring-your-own-device policies and building mobile apps that complement their full websites, mobile Web presence and/or desktop applications. Watch out for pitfalls in mobile apps: General risks and the recent Starbucks example However, both BYOD policies and mobile app development require due diligence around cybersecurity if they are to be worthwhile. Safety starts with well-designed applications that are strongly authenticated, do not leak sensitive data and are safe from popular attack vectors like brute-force password guessing. Unfortunately, many apps still have a long way to go on these fronts. An early 2014 study from MetaIntell discovered that 92 percent of the top 500 most popular Android apps at the time created privacy risks due to data leakage. Wary of leaky apps as well as what kinds of information users put into them, enterprises have understandably been concerned about the impact of mobile apps on their operations and BYOD initiatives. Security is often the biggest barrier to effective BYOD, and justifiably so considering that barely more than 40 percent of employees are required to have a security tool installed, according to Webroot. To get a sense of what could go wrong with today's mobile apps, consider what recently happened to Starbucks. The company's app is a mainstay on many phones, and at one time it accounted for the bulk of all mobile payments made in North America. The issue that arose over the last few months involved unauthorized card reloads and apparent account hijackings. The causes may have been mixed, with poor password management on the part of users possibly exacerbated by exploitation of the app's auto-reload feature and an April 2015 outage of the coffee chain's point-of-sale systems. At the end of the day, Starbucks implemented additional security questions and has been urged to add two-factor authentication into the app to prevent erroneous transactions. Catching mobile app security issues with a test management solution As we can see, mobile app security is multifactorial, requiring best efforts on the parts of end users, developers and infrastructure/network providers. For enterprises, the best approach to ensuring long-term security is to catch potential vulnerabilities early and often with a test management system. A test management solution supports both automated and manual testing, and receiving updates in real-time offers you the ability to make important decisions once issues arise. Regardless of how many tests, sprints and projects your company is running, all of them should be conveniently viewed from a lone interface, enabling a single source of truth that keeps your mobile app development initiatives on track.

The software development life cycle is an extremely intensive process for developers and quality assurance professionals alike. If even one element is neglected, it can delay project schedules and affect user performance. Security is one aspect that must be built in from the inception of any app, and here are a few reasons why: Breaches can cost your business Let's say that an organization uses its application to order and manage inventory, payroll and other operational needs. If a malicious entity were to access this information, it could easily make fraudulent transactions, costing the company more than what was intended. Not to mention it will create a massive headache to set the record straight. TechTarget contributor Peter Gregory noted that this can happen when programs lack audit trails and processes required for secure purchasing. By building in this functionality early on, this type of situation can be avoided, allowing organizations to retain customer trust and money. "Organizations that fail to involve information security in the life cycle will pay the price in the form of costly and disruptive events," Gregory wrote. "Many bad things can happen to information systems that lack the required security interfaces and characteristics." Access to confidential data can be damaging If a business aims to use an app for information sharing and availability, protection must be at the forefront of this project throughout its life cycle. While some data may not be as costly to leak, the loss of confidential reports and documents can severely affect the organization's ability tofunction. QA teams must ensure that security practices are implemented and built upon constantly. TechTarget contributor Nick Lewis noted that firewalls and traditional methods will not be enough to keep targeted attacks at bay. Instead, testing the app for insufficient process validation, abuse of functionality, weak password recovery validation and information leakage will be critical toguarding the program. Analyze initial risk before jumping in One SDLC security practice to observe is a primary risk assessment before the start of a new project. Not all applications are equal, which means each program will be labeled with a different risk level. Some software will be publicly accessible, whereas others will be more business-critical and involve processing sensitive data. These uses will largely determine how much risk would be involved with a breach on such activities. This information will give QA teams a clear picture of the security roadmap needed, and can be implemented. "Doing the preliminary risk assessment to establish the need for the system helps identify any security show stoppers before too much time and effort goes into the next SDLC phases," a SANS white paper stated. "It also gets the design team thinking about security issues early in the design process." Cyberattacks and malware in the headlines have made security more prominent than ever before. By building in protections early in the SDLC, QA teams can ensure that they will be better able tohandle these threats without interruptions to regular business activities.