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4.3. SSL/TLS Protocol Version

Overview

The versions of the SSL/TLS protocol that are supported by Apache CXF depend on the particular JSSE provider configured. By default, the JSSE provider is configured to be SUN’s JSSE provider implementation.
Warning
If you enable SSL/TLS security, you must ensure that you explicitly disable the SSLv3 protocol, in order to safeguard against the Poodle vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566). For more details, see Disabling SSLv3 in JBoss Fuse 6.x and JBoss A-MQ 6.x.

SSL/TLS protocol versions supported by SunJSSE

Table 4.2, “SSL/TLS Protocols Supported by SUN’s JSSE Provider” shows the SSL/TLS protocol versions supported by SUN’s JSSE provider.

Table 4.2. SSL/TLS Protocols Supported by SUN’s JSSE Provider

ProtocolDescription
SSLv2Hello
Do not use! (POODLE security vulnerability)
SSLv3
Do not use! (POODLE security vulnerability)
TLSv1
Supports TLS version 1
TLSv1.1Supports TLS version 1.1 (JDK 7 or later)
TLSv1.2Supports TLS version 1.2 (JDK 7 or later)

Excluding specific SSL/TLS protocol versions

By default, all of the SSL/TLS protocols provided by the JSSE provider are available to the CXF endpoints (except for the SSLv2Hello and SSLv3 protocols, which have been specifically excluded by the CXF runtime since JBoss Fuse version 6.2.0, because of the Poodle vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566)).
To exclude specific SSL/TLS protocols, use the sec:excludeProtocols element in the endpoint configuration. You can configure the sec:excludeProtocols element as a child of the httpj:tlsServerParameters element (server side).
To exclude all protocols except for TLS version 1.2, configure the sec:excludeProtocols element as follows (assuming you are using JDK 7 or later): 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans ... >
  ...
  <httpj:engine-factory bus="cxf">
    <httpj:engine port="9001">
      ...
      <httpj:tlsServerParameters>
        ...
        <sec:excludeProtocols>
          <sec:excludeProtocol>SSLv2Hello</sec:excludeProtocol>
          <sec:excludeProtocol>SSLv3</sec:excludeProtocol>
          <sec:excludeProtocol>TLSv1</sec:excludeProtocol>
          <sec:excludeProtocol>TLSv1.1</sec:excludeProtocol>
        </sec:excludeProtocols>
      </httpj:tlsServerParameters>
    </httpj:engine>
  </httpj:engine-factory>
  ...
</beans>
Important
It is recommended that you always exclude the SSLv2Hello and SSLv3 protocols, to protect against the Poodle vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566).

secureSocketProtocol attribute

Both the http:tlsClientParameters element and the httpj:tlsServerParameters element support the secureSocketProtocol attribute, which enables you to specify a particular protocol.
The semantics of this attribute are confusing, however: this attribute forces CXF to pick an SSL provider that supports the specified protocol, but it does not restrict the provider to use only the specified protocol. Hence, the endpoint could end up using a protocol that is different from the one specified. For this reason, the recommendation is that you do not use the secureSocketProtocol attribute in your code.