topic Re: Obfuscating form data in Alfresco Archive

Obfuscating form data

geoffb — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 01:15:00 GMT

I have created my own FormType for data fields that are sensitive, so that I can encrypt their values. This works well for ACT_RU_VARIABLE and ACT_HI_VARINST. What I can't figure out is how to have it encrypted in ACT_HI_DETAIL. The FormProperties are still stored in plain text.

Re: Obfuscating form data

trademak — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 09:29:10 GMT

Can you provide some more details about the FormType you've implemented?

Best regards,

Re: Obfuscating form data

geoffb — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 11:22:09 GMT

I basically, just did this in my class that extends AbstractFormType

@Override
def convertFormValueToModelValue(String secretString) {
return new SecretSerialisationType(secretString)
}

Re: Obfuscating form data

frederikherema1 — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 11:39:50 GMT

Instead of using a form-type, use a custom variable-type which stores the value encrypted and DON'T use form-properties, they will be always stored the way they come into the submitForm() method…

Another option, if form properties are required, is setting the history level high enough, so form-properties are not recorded…

Re: Obfuscating form data

geoffbullen — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 11:47:24 GMT

What I really want is both to use a form type and to leave the same history level.

Is there a way I can modify how the history stores my particular form type?

Re: Obfuscating form data

frederikherema1 — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 11:54:30 GMT

Extract from SubmitStartFormCmd:

 protected Object execute(CommandContext commandContext, TaskEntity task) {
    commandContext.getHistoryManager()
      .reportFormPropertiesSubmitted(task.getExecution(), properties, taskId);
    
    TaskFormHandler taskFormHandler = task.getTaskDefinition().getTaskFormHandler();
    taskFormHandler.submitFormProperties(properties, task.getExecution());
    
    task.complete();

    return null;
  }

The 'history record' is done using the RAW properties-map, as it is passed in. Since the record happens before the "TaskFormHandler" is called, it's also not an option to use a custom TaskFormHandler that alters the values in the properties-map.

The only way I see this working is either we move the "record" of history to after the TaskFormHandler has been executed, although there is no explicit use case for this, as the form-properties are intended to be stored in history as String's, unaffected by the property-type itself. Another way is to do the encryption in the layer above Activiti, if possible.

A solution that can be done without having to modify existing activiti-sourcecode is to create a subclass of the HistoryManager and provide your own factory for this to the processEngineConfiguration. You can override the "reportFormPropertiesSubmitted" method and alter the string-values before you call the super.reportFormPropertiesSubmitted(…).