WAS v8.5 > Secure applications > Secure web services > Secure web services > Web Services Security concepts > Web Services Security concepts > Web Services Security provides message integrity, confidentiality, and authentication > High-level architecture for Web Services Security > Overview of platform configuration and bindingsTrust anchor
A trust anchor specifies the key stores containing trusted root certificates. These certificates are used to validate the X.509 certificate that is embedded in the SOAP message.
When using WebSphere Application Server with the JAX-RPC programming model, key stores are implemented with the following message points to validate the X.509 certificate used for digital signature or XML encryption:
- Request consumer, as defined in the ibm-webservices-bnd.xmi file.
- Response consumer, as defined in the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi file when a web service is acting as a client to another web service.
For WAS v7.0 and later, using JAX-WS, key stores are used by the following message points to validate the X.509 certificate used for digital signature or XML encryption:
- Request consumer, as defined in the inbound keys and certificates of the WS-Security bindings.
- Response consumer, as defined in the inbound keys and certificates of the WS-Security bindings when a web service is acting as a client to another web service.
Key stores are critical to the integrity of the digital signature validation. If the key stores are tampered with, the result of the digital signature verification is doubtful and compromised. Therefore, IBM recommends that you secure the key stores. The binding configuration specified for the consumer must match the binding configuration for the generator.
The trust anchor is defined as java.security.cert.TrustAnchor in the Java CertPath API. The Java CertPath API uses the trust anchor and the certificate store to validate the incoming X.509 certificate that is embedded in the SOAP message. The Web Services Security implementation in WAS supports this trust anchor. In WAS, the trust anchor is represented as a Java key store object. The type, path, and password of the key store are passed to the implementation through the dmgr console or by scripting.
Related concepts:
Collection certificate store