How to Create Secure Web Applications with Struts
Added 31 Jul 2008
This article will focus on developing secure Web
applications with the popular Java framework Struts. It will detail a
set of best practices using the included security mechanisms. The first
section will provide an overview of both Struts and Web application
security as a context for discussion. Each subsequent section will
focus on a specific security principle and discuss how Struts can be
leveraged to address it.
Struts is a very popular framework for Java Web applications large and small because of the numerous advantages it offers developers. The main goal of the Struts framework is to enforce a MVC-style (Model-View-Controller) architecture, which means that there is a separation of concerns among different architectural components: the model is the representation of the logic, the view is in charge of displaying data to the user, and the controller is responsible for providing the user with a way to interact with the application and affect the model. A simple analogy for this is a video game, where you have a game console (the model), the television or monitor (the view), and a controller (quite appropriately, the controller). This architectural pattern promotes reuse and stability by reducing the effects of code changes (since the implementation of each component is agnostic to the implementation of the others and the model is isolated from the user).
Struts is a very popular framework for Java Web applications large and small because of the numerous advantages it offers developers. The main goal of the Struts framework is to enforce a MVC-style (Model-View-Controller) architecture, which means that there is a separation of concerns among different architectural components: the model is the representation of the logic, the view is in charge of displaying data to the user, and the controller is responsible for providing the user with a way to interact with the application and affect the model. A simple analogy for this is a video game, where you have a game console (the model), the television or monitor (the view), and a controller (quite appropriately, the controller). This architectural pattern promotes reuse and stability by reducing the effects of code changes (since the implementation of each component is agnostic to the implementation of the others and the model is isolated from the user).