Security evaluation of J2ME CLDC embedded java platform

Java 2 Micro-Edition Connected Limited Device Configuration (J2ME CLDC) is the platform of choice when it comes to running mobile applications on resource-constrained devices (cell phones, set-top boxes, etc.). The large deployment of this platform makes it a target for security attacks. The intent of this paper is twofold: First, we study and evaluate the security model of J2ME CLDC. Second, we provide a vulnerability analysis of this Java platform. The evaluated components are: Virtual machine, CLDC API and MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile) API. The analysis covers the specifications, the reference implementation (RI) as well as several other widely-deployed implementations of this platform. The aspects targeted by this security analysis encompass: Networking, record management system, virtual machine, multi-threading and digital rights management. This work identifies security weaknesses in J2ME CLDC that may represent sources of security exploits. Moreover, the results reported in this paper are valuable for any attempt to test or harden the security of this platform.