(12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 9.426,152 B2 Pieczul Et Al
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USOO9426152B2 (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 9.426,152 B2 Pieczul et al. (45) Date of Patent: Aug. 23, 2016 (54) SECURE TRANSFER OF WEB APPLICATION (56) References Cited CLIENT PERSISTENT STATE INFORMATION INTO A NEW DOMAIN U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 7,194.552 B1* 3/2007 Schneider ........... HO4L 61,3015 (71) Applicant: International Business Machines 709/217 Corporation, Armonk, NY (US) 7,664,724 B2 * 2/2010 Lucovsky ............. GO6F 21,335 707/781 8,504,692 B1 8, 2013 Henderson (72) Inventors: Olgierd S. Pieczul, Dublin (IE): 2004.0054898 A1 3/2004 Chao et al. Mariusz Pajecki, Dublin (IE); Izabela 2005/0204148 A1* 9/2005 Mayo .................. HO4L 63,0815 Pogorzelska-Pieczul, Dublin (IE): T13,185 Mustansir Banatwala, Hudson, NH 2006.0056317 A1 3/2006 Manning et al. (US) (Continued) (73) Assignee: International Business Machines OTHER PUBLICATIONS Corporation, Armonk, NY (US) Nirmal, K.; Ewards, S.E. Vinodh; Geetha, K. Maximizing Online Security by providiniga 3 Factor Authenticationi System to counter (*) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this attack Phishing. 2010 International Conference on Emerging patent is extended or adjusted under 35 Trends in Robotics and Communication Technologies. http:// U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days. ieeexplore.ieee.org/stampfstamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5706.185.* (Continued) (21) Appl. No.: 14/326,255 Primary Examiner — Jeremiah Avery (22) Filed: Jul. 8, 2014 (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm — David B. Woycechowsky; David H. Judson (65) Prior Publication Data US 2016/OO14153 A1 Jan. 14, 2016 (57) ABSTRACT A technique to reassign one or more stored elements of web (51) Int. Cl. application client state information is provided in an HTTP H04L 29/06 (2006.01) based client upon receipt of an HTTP redirect in response to H04L 29/08 (2006.01) a request-URI. One or more stored elements associated to the request-URI are saved in or in association with the client. (52) U.S. Cl. Upon receipt of an HTTP301 (permanent) redirect, the client CPC ........ H04L 63/0876 (2013.01); H04L 63/0853 automatically reassigns (re-associates) the one or more stored (2013.01); H04L 63/168 (2013.01); H04L elements to the redirect domain when the redirect can be 6702 (2013.01); H04L 67/2814 (2013.01) Verified as authentic (e.g., to originate from the application to (58) Field of Classification Search which the client is attempting to connect). None See application file for complete search history. 15 Claims, 3 Drawing Sheets 400 402 REDIRECTRECEIVE REASSIGNAND REDIRECT US 9,426,152 B2 Page 2 (56) References Cited 2012,0047577 A1 2/2012 Costinsky et al. 2013/0246846 A1* 9/2013 Oyman ................... HO4W 4.06 U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS T14, 18 2014/0173088 A1* 6/2014 Varney .................. HO4L 67.289 2006/0253446 11, 2006 Leong et al. TO9,224 2006/0265508 11, 2006 Angel ............... HO4L 29, 12047 2014/0337954 A1* 11/2014 Ahmed ................... G06F 21? 41 TO9/230 T26/8 2008.0005127 1, 2008 Schneider ......... HO4L 29, 12594 707,999.01 OTHER PUBLICATIONS 2008/O120412 5/2008 Icaza ....................... HO4L 67/16 709,225 2009 OO31368 1/2009 Ling Kumar, Anugrah; Roy, Sanjiban Shekar, Saxena, Sanklan; Rawat, 2009, O144288 6, 2009 Refuah et al. Sarvesh SS. Phishing Detection by determining Reliability Factor 2010, 0070448 3, 2010 Omoigui ............. HOL 27, 1463 using Rough Set Theory. 2013 International Conference on Machine TO6/47 2010/0281107 11, 2010 Fallows .................... GO6F 9/54 Intelligence and Research Advancement. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ TO9,203 stamp? stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6918828.* 2011/02092O2 8, 2011 Otranen .................. HO4L 63.08 T26/4 * cited by examiner U.S. Patent Aug. 23, 2016 Sheet 1 of 3 US 9.426,152 B2 100 Y FIG. 1 E 110 104 DDDD Ul SER 112 106-1 000 STORAGE 114 108 CLIENT U.S. Patent Aug. 23, 2016 Sheet 2 of 3 US 9.426,152 B2 COMPUTER READABLE MEDIA FIG 2 216 300 Y 304 MEMORY 310-1 RELINKCODE WEB REASSIGNMENT APPLICATION CODE CLIENT STATE 308 CACHE INFORMATIONN-314 316 302 HARDWARE FIG. 3 U.S. Patent Aug. 23, 2016 Sheet 3 of 3 US 9.426,152 B2 400 402 REDIRECT RECEIVED ISSYSTEM ENABLED2 420 422 426 US 9,426,152 B2 1. 2 SECURE TRANSFER OF WEB, APPLICATION and/or remove obsolete data stored for the old application CLIENT PERSISTENT STATE INFORMATION server domain. In addition, all persistent cookies that locally INTO A NEW DOMAIN cache a user's state information are not reflected in the new server domain. As a consequence, and despite the authenticity BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION of the redirect, the user may have difficulty interacting with the new (redirected) application server domain in an auto 1. Technical Field mated and/or seamless manner. This disclosure relates generally to web application Secu rity and, in particular, to ensuring secure transfer of a web BRIEF SUMMARY application's client persistent state information to a new 10 According to this disclosure, a client state information domain upon receipt of an authentic HTTP redirect. transfer or “reassignment' function is implemented in an 2. Background of the Related Art HTTP-based web application client upon receipt by the client One way that computers interact via networks such as the of an HTTP redirect in response to a request-URI. Typically, Internet is using the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) the request-URI is associated with an application server open standard designed by the World WideWeb Consortium 15 domain. Upon receipt an HTTP permanent redirection mes (W3C) and standardized as Internet Engineering Task Force sage, and upon confirming that the message is authentic, the (IETF) RFC 2616. It is an intentionally simple and open web application client automatically reassigns the client state protocol that is implemented across many heterogeneous information (e.g., form elements, passwords, cookies, and the computer systems. like) to the new application server domain identified in the A web application often needs to modify its URL structure, redirect. e.g., to point to a new domain. When the web application has In operation, and upon receipt of a permanent redirect, a active users, however, the modification of URL structure is a client user-agent that has been provisioned to implement the troublesome task. The most difficult aspect is making Sure reassignment function determines whether the permanent that, even if URLS change, user impact is minimal. In par redirect message is authentic, e.g., whether it is received from ticular, it is important that URLs are preserved in user clients 25 the application server domain to which the request-URI was directed. Preferably, this determination is made in one of (e.g., bookmarks in web browsers, URLs in feed readers and several ways, e.g., evaluating whether the redirect is received other rich-clients that use REST-based APIs, and the like) and in a trusted SSL connection, whether the redirect is received continue to work for at least some transition period following in a connection that, if not protected by SSL, is otherwise the change. Typically, this goal is achieved by using HTTP trusted (e.g., because the request-response is being carried out redirects (from an old to a new location). There are two (2) 30 over a corporate network), or even whether a user has, upon main types of redirects: temporary, when the client is receipt of the HTTP redirect, confirmed that reassignment instructed to temporarily use another location (e.g., for a login should occur, or the like. In response to a determination that page or a resource), and permanent, when a resource (e.g., a the permanent redirect is authentic, state information stored Web application's URL domain structure) changes perma in the browser and associated with the old application server nently. As is well-known, these redirects are done through 35 domain is automatically reassigned (re-associated) at the cli HTTP response codes, respectively, an HTTP 302 (tempo ent user-agent and associated with the new application server rary) and an HTTP301 (permanent), which are returned from domain. a web application to a requesting user-agent, such as a Web The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent browser. features of the disclosed subject matter. These features should The HTTP specification (RFC 2616) defines that on per 40 be construed to be merely illustrative. Many other beneficial manent redirection (the HTTP301) “clients with link editing results can be attained by applying the disclosed subject mat capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the terina different manner or by modifying the Subject matter as Request-URI to one or more of the new references returned will be described. by the server, where possible.” Practically, however, clients BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS typically ignore (some purposefully) this requirement and do 45 not update their URL references for HTTP 301 redirection. For a more complete understanding of the Subject matter The main reasons for this behavior are usability and security and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the problems. Thus, for example, consider a pay-per-use internet following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accom provider (e.g., at an airport or hotel), which providers often panying drawings, in which: send the HTTP 301 redirect code incorrectly. If a browser 50 FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary block diagram of a distributed updates links for this redirection, those links would be per data processing environment in which exemplary aspects of manently changed to the incorrect location (and thus broken). the illustrative embodiments may be implemented; In another example, if a browser updates URIs in response to FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of a data processing an HTTP 301, malicious open wireless hotspots or proxies system in which exemplary aspects of the illustrative embodi would gain the ability to permanently re-link a user's book 55 ments may be implemented; marks or application URLs, thus expanding the scope of FIG.