Security-hardening properties

IBM® Business Process Manager provides configuration settings at the deployment environment level to harden security that mitigates web application threats that include cross-site request forgery (CSRF), network sniffing, clickjacking, and uploading malicious documents.

These security settings are off by default. You enable them by setting custom properties at the deployment environment (DE) level in the configuration repository by using the setBPMProperty command. The following table describes the available properties and shows you how to set them for the sample deployment environment De1.

Table 1. Security-hardening properties
Property Accepted values Example Default value
ProcessServer.CsrfProtectionRefererWhitelist The value of this property must be a comma-separated list of host names (or domain names) that are valid values for the Referer header field. By restricting values to host names and domain names that serve user interfaces for IBM BPM, you can mitigate CSRF. For more information about the Referer header field, see the Request for Comments (RFC) 7231 documentation. 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
 'ProcessServer.CsrfProtectionRefererWhitelist', '-value',
 'fmtc4090.boeblingen.de.ibm.com'])
 Unassigned, which allows the header of the HTTP request to contain any value
IBM BPM version 8570 cumulative fix 2016.09ProcessServer.CsrfProtectionOriginWhitelist The value of this property must be a comma-separated list of prefixes in the format protocol://host:port that are acceptable values in the Origin header field. By restricting possible values to host names and domain names that serve user interfaces for IBM BPM, you can mitigate CSRF. For more information about the Origin header, see the RFC 6454 documentation. 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.CsrfProtectionOriginWhitelist', '-value',
    'https://fmtc4090.boeblingen.de.ibm.com'])
 Unassigned, which allows the header of the HTTP request to contain any value
ProcessServer.XFrameOptionsHeaderValue You set the value of the X-Frame-Options header field of the HTTP response with this property. IBM BPM returns this value to client requests. The value disallows browsers to embed IBM BPM user interfaces in iframes and, thus, mitigates potential clickjacking attacks. You can set the following values:
  • DENY: This value specifies that IBM BPM must not be embedded in iframes.
    Note: This value does not work with client-side human services and IBM Process Portal.
  • SAMEORIGIN: This value is recommended for most scenarios. IBM BPM user interfaces can be embedded in iframes, if the iframe element is served from the same origin as the IBM BPM user interface.
  • ALLOW-FROM https://example.com/: This value allows the browser to embed IBM BPM in iframes served from the https://example.com/ URI.
For more information about the X-Frame-Origin options, see the RFC 7034 documentation.		 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.XFrameOptionsHeaderValue', '-value', 'SAMEORIGIN'])
 Unassigned, which omits the X-Frame-Options field in the response header
ProcessServer.ContentSecurityPolicyHeaderValue You set the value of the Content-Security-Policy and X-Content-Security-Policy HTTP response header fields with this property. IBM BPM returns this value to client requests. The value instructs the browser to load and run assets in the context of IBM BPM user interfaces only from a set of whitelisted origins. For example, the policy default-src 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' https://bpm1.ibm.com https://bpm1; img-src data: https://bpm1.ibm.com https://bpm1 instructs the browser to retrieve images from data: URIs and from URIs that meet one of the two whitelisted URI patterns. 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.ContentSecurityPolicyHeaderValue', '-value', "default-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'
    'unsafe-eval' https://fmtc4090.boeblingen.de.ibm.com"])
 Unassigned, which omits both the response header fields
ProcessServer.StrictTransportSecurityHeaderValue You set the value of the Strict-Transport-Security HTTP response header field with this property. IBM BPM returns this value to client requests. The value instructs the browser to upgrade any http:// link to the server to an https:// link. For more information about the Strict-Transport-Security header, see the RFC 6797 RFC documentation. A sample value is max-age=100; includeSubDomains. 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.StrictTransportSecurityHeaderValue', '-value', "max-age=100;
    includeSubDomains"])
 Unassigned, which omits the Strict-Transport-Security response header field
ProcessServer.XXssProtectionHeaderValue You set the value of the X-XSS-Protection HTTP response header field with this property. IBM BPM returns this value to client requests. The value instructs the browser to enable its built-in cross-site scripting protection, independent of the user's configuration. Setting this property can be useful if the Internet Explorer browser categorizes IBM BPM to run in the intranet zone, which applies weaker browser security settings. A sample value is 1; mode=block. 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.XXssProtectionHeaderValue', '-value', "1;
    mode=block"])
 Unassigned, which omits the X-Xss-Protection response header field
ProcessServer.XContentTypeOptionsHeaderValue You set the value of the X-Content-Type-Options HTTP response header field with this property. IBM BPM returns this value to client requests. For example, a value of nosniff instructs browsers to disable MIME-type sniffing (a technique that tries to determine a suitable rendering strategy for server content based on the contents of the HTTP response). MIME-type sniffing can interfere with the explicit overwriting of MIME types in IBM BPM document downloads and, thus, re-run JavaScript even if IBM BPM explicitly set the Content-Type header to force the download window. 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.XContentTypeOptionsHeaderValue', '-value', "nosniff"])
 Unassigned, which omits the X-Content-Type-Options response header field
ProcessServer.CsrfSessionTokenSalt ProcessServer.CsrfSessionTokenProtectedUris You enable session-specific tokens to mitigate CSRF with these properties.
  • To generate identical CSRF protection tokens on all cluster members without sharing the generated tokens, use the ProcessServer.CsrfSessionTokenSalt property. To activate the CSRF protection token, set any value for ProcessServer.CsrfSessionTokenSalt.
  • For the server to check for CSRF protection, use the ProcessServer.CsrfSessionTokenProtectedUris property. The only supported value for this property is /teamworks/ajaxCoach, which enforces server-side checking of CSRF protection tokens for this exact URL.
 
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.CsrfSessionTokenSalt', '-value', 'verySecret'])
AdminTask.setBPMProperty(['-de', 'De1', '-name',
    'ProcessServer.CsrfSessionTokenProtectedUris', '-value',
    '/teamworks/ajaxCoach'])
 Unassigned, which makes IBM BPM vulnerable to CSRF
Parent topic: Creating a secure environment
Related information:
setBPMProperty command