How to set SameSite and Secure attribute to JSESSIONID cookie

Question

I have a Spring Boot Web Application (Spring boot version 2.0.3.RELEASE) and running in an Apache Tomcat 8.5.5 server.

With the recent security policy which has imposed by Google Chrome (Rolled out since 80.0), it is requested to apply the new SameSite attribute to make the Cross-site cookie access in a more secure way instead of the CSRF. As I have done nothing related that and Chrome has set default value SameSite=Lax for the first-party cookies, one of my third-party service integration is failing due to the reason that chrome is restricting access of cross-site cookies when SameSite=Lax and if the third party response is coming from a POST request (Once the procedure completes third-party service redirect to our site with a POST request). in there Tomcat unable to find the session so it appends a new JSESSIONID (with a new session and the previous session was killed) at the end of the URL. So Spring rejects the URL as it contains a semicolon which was introduced by the new JSESSIONID append.

So I need to change the JSESSIONID cookie attributes(SameSite=None; Secure) and tried it in several ways including WebFilters.I have seen the same question and answers in Stackoverflow and tried most of them but ended up in nowhere.

can someone come up with a solution to change those headers in Spring Boot, please?

Answer 1

I was able to come up with my own solution for this.

I have two kinds of applications which run on Spring boot which has different Spring security configurations and they needed different solutions to fix this.

CASE 1: No user authentication

In here you might have created an endpoint for the 3rd party response, in your application. You are safe until you access httpSession in a controller method. If you are accessing session in different controller method then send a temporary redirect request to there like follows.

@Controller
public class ThirdPartyResponseController{

@RequestMapping(value=3rd_party_response_URL, method=RequestMethod.POST)
public void thirdPartyresponse(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse){
    // your logic
    // and you can set any data as an session attribute which you want to access over the 2nd controller 
    request.getSession().setAttribute(<data>)
    try {
        httpServletResponse.sendRedirect(<redirect_URL>);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // handle error
    }
}

@RequestMapping(value=redirect_URL, method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String thirdPartyresponse(HttpServletRequest request,  HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse, Model model,  RedirectAttributes redirectAttributes, HttpSession session){
    // your logic
        return <to_view>;
    }
}

Still, you need to allow the 3rd_party_response_url in your security configuration.

Case 2: Users need to be authenticated/sign in

In a Spring Web application where you have configured most of your security rules either through HttpSecurity or WebSecurity, check this solution.

Sample security config which I have tested the solution:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
@EnableGlobalMethodSecurity(prePostEnabled = true, securedEnabled = true)
public class SecurityConfiguration extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http.
          ......
          ..antMatchers(<3rd_party_response_URL>).permitAll();
          .....
          ..csrf().ignoringAntMatchers(<3rd_party_response_URL>);
    }
}

The Important points which I want to highlight in this configuration are you should allow the 3rd party response URL from Spring Security and CSRF protection(if it's enabled).

Then we need to create a HttpServletRequest Filter by extending GenericFilterBean class (Filter class did not work for me) and setting the SameSite Attributes to the JSESSIONID cookie by intercepting each HttpServletRequest and setting the response headers.

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
import org.springframework.http.HttpHeaders;
import org.springframework.web.filter.GenericFilterBean;

import javax.servlet.FilterChain;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.ServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.ServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.Cookie;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class SessionCookieFilter extends GenericFilterBean {

    private final List<String> PATHS_TO_IGNORE_SETTING_SAMESITE = Arrays.asList("resources", <add other paths you want to exclude>);
    private final String SESSION_COOKIE_NAME = "JSESSIONID";
    private final String SAME_SITE_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES = ";HttpOnly;Secure;SameSite=None";

    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        HttpServletRequest req = (HttpServletRequest) request;
        HttpServletResponse resp = (HttpServletResponse) response;
        String requestUrl = req.getRequestURL().toString();
        boolean isResourceRequest = requestUrl != null ? StringUtils.isNoneBlank(PATHS_TO_IGNORE_SETTING_SAMESITE.stream().filter(s -> requestUrl.contains(s)).findFirst().orElse(null)) : null;
        if (!isResourceRequest) {
            Cookie[] cookies = ((HttpServletRequest) request).getCookies();
            if (cookies != null && cookies.length > 0) {
                List<Cookie> cookieList = Arrays.asList(cookies);
                Cookie sessionCookie = cookieList.stream().filter(cookie -> SESSION_COOKIE_NAME.equals(cookie.getName())).findFirst().orElse(null);
                if (sessionCookie != null) {
                    resp.setHeader(HttpHeaders.SET_COOKIE, sessionCookie.getName() + "=" + sessionCookie.getValue() + SAME_SITE_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES);
                }
            }
        }
        chain.doFilter(request, response);
    }
}

Then add this filter to the Spring Security filter chain by

@Override
protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http.
           ....
           .addFilterAfter(new SessionCookieFilter(), BasicAuthenticationFilter.class);
}

This SameSite cookie attribute will not support some old browser versions and in that case, check the browser and avoid setting SameSite in incompatible clients..

private static final String _I_PHONE_IOS_12 = "iPhone OS 12_";
    private static final String _I_PAD_IOS_12 = "iPad; CPU OS 12_";
    private static final String _MAC_OS_10_14 = " OS X 10_14_";
    private static final String _VERSION = "Version/";
    private static final String _SAFARI = "Safari";
    private static final String _EMBED_SAFARI = "(KHTML, like Gecko)";
    private static final String _CHROME = "Chrome/";
    private static final String _CHROMIUM = "Chromium/";
    private static final String _UC_BROWSER = "UCBrowser/";
    private static final String _ANDROID = "Android";

    /*
     * checks SameSite=None;Secure incompatible Browsers
     * https://www.chromium.org/updates/same-site/incompatible-clients
     */
    public static boolean isSameSiteInCompatibleClient(HttpServletRequest request) {
        String userAgent = request.getHeader("user-agent");
        if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(userAgent)) {
            boolean isIos12 = isIos12(userAgent), isMacOs1014 = isMacOs1014(userAgent), isChromeChromium51To66 = isChromeChromium51To66(userAgent), isUcBrowser = isUcBrowser(userAgent);
            //TODO : Added for testing purpose. remove before Prod release.
            LOG.info("*********************************************************************************");
            LOG.info("is iOS 12 = {}, is MacOs 10.14 = {}, is Chrome 51-66 = {}, is Android UC Browser = {}", isIos12, isMacOs1014, isChromeChromium51To66, isUcBrowser);
            LOG.info("*********************************************************************************");
            return isIos12 || isMacOs1014 || isChromeChromium51To66 || isUcBrowser;
        }
        return false;
    }

    private static boolean isIos12(String userAgent) {
        return StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _I_PHONE_IOS_12) || StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _I_PAD_IOS_12);
    }

    private static boolean isMacOs1014(String userAgent) {
        return StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _MAC_OS_10_14)
            && ((StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _VERSION) && StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _SAFARI))  //Safari on MacOS 10.14
            || StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _EMBED_SAFARI)); // Embedded browser on MacOS 10.14
    }

    private static boolean isChromeChromium51To66(String userAgent) {
        boolean isChrome = StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _CHROME), isChromium = StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _CHROMIUM);
        if (isChrome || isChromium) {
            int version = isChrome ? Integer.valueOf(StringUtils.substringAfter(userAgent, _CHROME).substring(0, 2))
                : Integer.valueOf(StringUtils.substringAfter(userAgent, _CHROMIUM).substring(0, 2));
            return ((version >= 51) && (version <= 66));    //Chrome or Chromium V51-66
        }
        return false;
    }

    private static boolean isUcBrowser(String userAgent) {
        if (StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _UC_BROWSER) && StringUtils.contains(userAgent, _ANDROID)) {
            String[] version = StringUtils.splitByWholeSeparator(StringUtils.substringAfter(userAgent, _UC_BROWSER).substring(0, 7), ".");
            int major = Integer.valueOf(version[0]), minor = Integer.valueOf(version[1]), build = Integer.valueOf(version[2]);
            return ((major != 0) && ((major < 12) || (major == 12 && (minor < 13)) || (major == 12 && minor == 13 && (build < 2)))); //UC browser below v12.13.2 in android
        }
        return false;
    }

Add above check in SessionCookieFilter like follows,

if (!isResourceRequest && !UserAgentUtils.isSameSiteInCompatibleClient(req)) {

This filter won't work in localhost environments as it requires a Secured(HTTPS) connection to set Secure cookie attribute.

For a detailed explanation read this blog post.