How to enable CSRF protection in JSF-Spring integrated application

Question

I have a JSF-Spring integrated application. Spring security is also integrated in this application. These are the versions in my application:

• JSF 2.2

Answer 1

Tested with Spring 4.3.7 and Spring Security 4.2.2.

You need to add a CSRF token to every form in your application. Any PATCH, POST, PUT and DELETE will be protected by Spring security (for the basic verbs). To avoid inserting a hidden input in every form manually you can create a FormRenderer on top of the provided one :

import com.sun.faces.renderkit.html_basic.FormRenderer;

import javax.el.ELContext;
import javax.el.ExpressionFactory;
import javax.faces.component.UIComponent;
import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.faces.context.ResponseWriter;
import java.io.IOException;

public class FormWithCSRFRenderer extends FormRenderer {

    @Override
    public void encodeEnd(FacesContext context, UIComponent component) throws IOException {
        log.debug("FormWithCSRFRenderer - Adding CSRF Token to form element");
        ELContext elContext = context.getELContext();
        ExpressionFactory expFactory = context.getApplication().getExpressionFactory();

        ResponseWriter writer = context.getResponseWriter();
        writer.startElement("input", component);
        writer.writeAttribute("type", "hidden", null);
        writer.writeAttribute("name", expFactory.createValueExpression(elContext, "${_csrf.parameterName}", String.class).getValue(elContext), null);
        writer.writeAttribute("value", expFactory.createValueExpression(elContext, "${_csrf.token}", String.class).getValue(elContext), null);
        writer.endElement("input");
        writer.write("\n");
        super.encodeEnd(context, component);
    }
}

Then register it to override the FormRenderer by setting it in faces-config.xml :

    
        
            javax.faces.Form
            javax.faces.Form
            com.acme.FormWithCSRFRenderer
        
    

Also don't forget to enable CSRF in your spring context :

For your AJAX calls, you will also need to add this token in the data of any protected HTTP Verb. You can retrieve the token directly from the DOM.