Spring Security - No visible WebSecurityExpressionHandler instance could be found in the application context

I am having trouble displaying a logout link in a JSP page only if the user is authenticated. Here is the exception I have at this line of the JSP page:

<sec:authorize access="isAuthenticated()">

Exception:

Stacktrace:
....

root cause

javax.servlet.jsp.JspException: No visible WebSecurityExpressionHandler instance could be found in the application context. There must be at least one in order to support expressions in JSP 'authorize' tags.
    org.springframework.security.taglibs.authz.AuthorizeTag.getExpressionHandler(AuthorizeTag.java:100)
    org.springframework.security.taglibs.authz.AuthorizeTag.authorizeUsingAccessExpression(AuthorizeTag.java:58)

Here is my application-context-Security.xml:

<http auto-config='true' >
    <intercept-url pattern="/user/**" access="ROLE_User" />
    <logout logout-success-url="/hello.htm" />
</http>

<beans:bean id="daoAuthenticationProvider"
    class="org.springframework.security.authentication.dao.DaoAuthenticationProvider">
    <beans:property name="userDetailsService" ref="userDetailsService" />
</beans:bean>

<beans:bean id="authenticationManager"
    class="org.springframework.security.authentication.ProviderManager">
    <beans:property name="providers">
        <beans:list>
            <beans:ref local="daoAuthenticationProvider" />
        </beans:list>
    </beans:property>
</beans:bean>

<authentication-manager>
    <authentication-provider user-service-ref="userDetailsService">
        <password-encoder hash="plaintext" />
    </authentication-provider>
</authentication-manager>

I understand that I could use use-expression="true" in the http tag but that means I would have to use expression in the intercept-url tags and in the Java code. Is there a workaround?

Solution

You can just add one to your application context

<bean id="webexpressionHandler" class="org.springframework.security.web.access.expression.DefaultWebSecurityExpressionHandler" />

but the easiest way is just to enable expressions in your <http> configuration, and one will be added for you. This only means that you have to use expressions within that block, not in Java code such as method @Secured annotations.