Security token

Web Services Security provides a general-purpose mechanism to associate security tokens with messages for single message authentication. A security token represents a set of claims made by a client that might include a name, password, identity, key, certificate, group, privilege, and so on.

A specific type of security token is not required by Web Services Security. Web Services Security is designed to be extensible and support multiple security token formats to accommodate a variety of authentication mechanisms. For example, a client might provide proof of identity and proof of a particular business certification. However, the security token usage for Web Services Security is defined in separate profiles such as the Username token profile, the X.509 token profile, the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) token profile, the eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML) token profile, the Kerberos token profile, and so on.

A security token is embedded in the SOAP message within the SOAP header. The security token within the SOAP header is propagated from the message sender to the intended message receiver. On the receiving side, the WebSphere® Application Server Web Services Security handler authenticates the security token and sets up the caller identity on the running thread.