Question

I am looking for a way to encrypt a password in a configuration file
that is being read by a Java program. Currently, I read-in the
password from the text file, but that leaves the password sitting right
out in the open if someone were to look at the config file.

I was thinking of building a simple class where user could type in
their desired password, get an encrypted version of the password, then
paste the encrypted version into the configuration text file. Then the
application would read encrypted password, decrypt the password back
into a string, and move on.

I am having trouble with the string–>encrytped bytes–>string
conversions.

I am using the built-in java security classes to implement this code.
Here is some sample test code:

    // Reads password from config file
String password = ScriptConfig.getString( "password" );

// Generate Key
KeyGenerator kg = KeyGenerator.getInstance("DES");
Key key = kg.generateKey();

// Create Encryption cipher
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance( "DES" );
cipher.init( Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key );

// Encrypt password
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal( password.getBytes() );

// Create decryption cipher
cipher.init( Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key );
byte[] decrypted = cipher.doFinal( encrypted );

// Convert byte[] to String
String decryptedString = new String(decrypted);

System.out.println("password: " + password);
System.out.println("encrypted: " + encrypted);
System.out.println("decrypted: " + decryptedString);

// Read encrypted string from config file
String encryptedPassword = ScriptConfig.getString( "encryptedPassword"
);

// Convert encryptedPassword string into byte[]
byte[] encryptedPasswordBytes = new byte[1024];
encryptedPasswordBytes = encryptedPassword.getBytes();

// Decrypt encrypted password from config file
byte[] decryptedPassword = cipher.doFinal( encryptedPasswordBytes );//error here

System.out.println("encryptedPassword: " + encryptedPassword);
System.out.println("decryptedPassword: " + decryptedPassword);


The config file has the following variables:
password=password
encryptedPassword=[B@2a4983


When I run the code, I get the following output:
password: passwd
encrypted: [B@2a4983
decrypted: passwd
javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException: Input length must be multiple
of 8 when decrypting with padded cipher
at com.sun.crypto.provider.SunJCE_h.b(DashoA12275)
at com.sun.crypto.provider.SunJCE_h.b(DashoA12275)
at com.sun.crypto.provider.DESCipher.engineDoFinal(Da shoA12275)
at javax.crypto.Cipher.doFinal(DashoA12275)
at com.sapient.fbi.uid.TestEncryption.main(TestEncryp tion.java:4

Any help on the error, structure, or process I am using to do this
would be great. Thanks.

Answer 1

A really simple solution would be to use Base64 encoding, see the code snippet below :-

import sun.misc.BASE64Decoder;
import sun.misc.BASE64Encoder;

...

private String encode(String str) {
    BASE64Encoder encoder = new BASE64Encoder();
    str = new String(encoder.encodeBuffer(str.getBytes()));
    return str;
}

private String decode(String str) {
    BASE64Decoder decoder = new BASE64Decoder();
    try {
        str = new String(decoder.decodeBuffer(str));
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }       
    return str;
}

...