How does CollabNet TeamForge help protect my data?

Sensitive data must be protected from illegal access at various points in the system. Key areas where security is typically compromised include data transmission and data storage.

Data transmission

Network traffic is not encrypted by default. The HTTP protocol (non-SSL) does not protect data during transmission. HTTPS provides Strong Encryption using the Secure Socket Layer and Transport Layer Security protocols (SSL/TLS).

Note: The web server employed by a CollabNet TeamForge installation must be reconfigured to employ the HTTPS protocol.

Data storage

Sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, financial information, etc., must be stored securely. Usually this is done by encryption. In the context of an application like CollabNet TeamForge only stores password digests with an MD5 based cryptographic hash to guarantee adequate data protection.

MD5 is a one-way hash function that is used to verify data integrity through the creation of a 128-bit digest from data input. A one-way hash function is designed in such a way that it is hard to reverse the process, that is, to find a string that hashes to a given value. MD5 is currently a standard, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) 1321. According to the standard, it is "computationally infeasible" that any two messages that have been input to the MD5 algorithm could have as the output the same message digest, or that a false message could be created through apprehension of the message digest.