Spring Security is a Java/Java EE framework that provides authentication, authorization and other security features for enterprise applications. The project was started in late 2003 as 'Acegi Security' (pronounced Ah-see-gee) by Ben Alex, with it being publicly released under the Apache License in March 2004. Subsequently, Acegi was incorporated into the Spring portfolio as Spring Security, an official Spring sub-project. The first public release under the new name was Spring Security 2.0.0 in April 2008, with commercial support and training available from SpringSource.
Diagram 1 shows the basic flow of an authentication request using the Spring Security system. It shows the different filters and how they interact from the initial browser request, to either a successful authentication or an HTTP 403 error.
LDAP (using both bind-based and password comparison strategies) for centralization of authentication information.
Single sign-on capabilities using the popular Central Authentication Service.
Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) LoginModule, a standards-based method for authentication used within Java. Note this feature is only a delegation to a JAAS Loginmodule.
Basic access authentication as defined through the IETF Request for Comments 1945 standard.
Digest access authentication as defined through the IETF Request for Comments 2617 and RFC 2069 standard.
X.509 client certificate presentation over the Secure Sockets Layer standard.
CA, Inc SiteMinder for authentication (a popular commercial access management product).
Su (Unix)-like support for switching principal identity over a HTTP or HTTPS connection.
Run-as replacement, which enables an operation to assume a different security identity.
Anonymous authentication, which means that even unauthenticated principals are allocated a security identity.
Container adapter (custom realm) support for Apache Tomcat, Resin, JBoss and Jetty (web server).
Windows NTLM to enable browser integration (experimental).
Web form authentication, similar to the Servlet container specification.
"Remember-me" support via HTTP Cookies.
Concurrent session support, which limits the number of simultaneous logins permitted by a principal.
Full support for customization and plugging in custom authentication implementations.
AspectJ method invocation authorization.
HTTP authorization of web request URLs using a choice of Apache Ant paths or regular expressions.
Used for specifying Access control lists applicable to domain objects.
Spring Security offers a repository for storing, retrieving, and modifying ACLs in a database.
Authorization features are provided to enforce policies before and after method invocations.
Software localization so user interface messages can be in any language.
Channel security, to automatically switch between HTTP and HTTPS upon meeting particular rules.
Caching in all database-touching areas of the framework.
Publishing of messages to facilitate event-driven programming.
Support for performing integration testing via JUnit.
Spring Security itself has comprehensive JUnit isolation tests.
Several sample applications, detailed JavaDocs and a reference guide.
Web framework independence.
3.2.0 (December 16, 2013)
4.0.0 (March 26, 2015)
4.1.3 (August 24, 2016)
4.2.0 (November 10, 2016)
3.2.10, 4.1.4, 4.2.1 (December 22, 2016)
4.2.2 (March 02, 2017)
