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Special characters at the beginning of message after decryption

I'm encrypting a JSON message and sending it to the user. When they decrypt it, some of the messages show special characters at the beginning of the messages.
When i tried to decrypt from my side it's working fine. If they are decrypting it it shows special characters, but only for some messages as some are decrypting just fine.
Below is the Java code I am using to encrypt the messages and also adding code they are using to decrypt in .NET. Please help me understand this situation and why it's happening.
JAVA CODE(Encryption):
package com.kcs.mule.encryption;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
import org.mule.api.MuleEventContext;
import org.mule.api.lifecycle.Callable;
import java.security.AlgorithmParameters;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.util.Arrays;
import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
import javax.crypto.SecretKeyFactory;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.PBEKeySpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
public class AESEncryption implements Callable {
private static final String password = "fvtQhQcKZVWMCXRLbqmRgfEBXYWshTEP";
private static int pswdIterations = 65536;
private static int keySize = 256;
private static byte[] ivBytes;
#Override
public Object onCall(MuleEventContext eventContext) throws Exception {
String plainText = eventContext.getMessageAsString();
byte[] saltBytes = password.getBytes("UTF-8");
// Derive the key
SecretKeyFactory factory = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance("PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256");
PBEKeySpec spec = new PBEKeySpec(password.toCharArray(), saltBytes, pswdIterations, keySize);
SecretKey secretKey = factory.generateSecret(spec);
SecretKeySpec secret = new SecretKeySpec(secretKey.getEncoded(), "AES");
// encrypt the message
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secret);
AlgorithmParameters params = cipher.getParameters();
ivBytes = params.getParameterSpec(IvParameterSpec.class).getIV();
byte[] encryptedTextBytes = cipher.doFinal(plainText.getBytes("UTF-8"));
byte[] encryptedOutput = new byte[ivBytes.length+encryptedTextBytes.length];
System.arraycopy(ivBytes, 0, encryptedOutput, 0, ivBytes.length);
System.arraycopy(encryptedTextBytes,0,encryptedOutput,ivBytes.length,encryptedTextBytes.length);
return encryptedOutput;
}
}
DOT Net Code(Decryption code):
byte[] saltBytes = key;
PBEKeySpec keySpec = new PBEKeySpec(key, saltBytes, 65536);
var keyHash = keySpec.GetBytes(32);
using (Aes aesCrypto = Aes.Create())
{
//set the BlockSize and the KeySize before you set the Key and the IV
//to avoid padding exceptions.
aesCrypto.BlockSize = 128;
aesCrypto.KeySize = 256; // AES256
aesCrypto.Key = keyHash;
byte[] cipherTextCombined = request.MessageBytes;
byte[] IV = new byte[aesCrypto.BlockSize / 8];
byte[] cipherText = new byte[cipherTextCombined.Length - IV.Length];
Array.Copy(cipherTextCombined, IV, IV.Length);
Array.Copy(cipherTextCombined, IV.Length, cipherText, 0, cipherText.Length);
aesCrypto.IV = IV; //Initialization vector
aesCrypto.Mode = CipherMode.CBC; //Cipher Block Chaining mode
aesCrypto.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;
// Create a decryptor to perform the stream transform.
ICryptoTransform decryptor = aesCrypto.CreateDecryptor(aesCrypto.Key, aesCrypto.IV);
// Create the streams used for decryption.
using (var msDecrypt = new MemoryStream(cipherText))
{
using (var csDecrypt = new CryptoStream(msDecrypt, decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read))
{
using (var srDecrypt = new StreamReader(csDecrypt, new UTF8Encoding(false)))
{
// Read the decrypted bytes from stream to string.
response.MessageText = srDecrypt.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
}
}
Actual result:
����wߞ*�/�r5le": {
"System": "KCS",
"Train": {
"TrainNumber": "36181542",
"TrainID": "G-CDMY -26",
Expected Result:
TrainSchedule: {
"System": "KCS",
"Train": {
"TrainNumber": "36181542",
"TrainID": "G-CDMY -26",

It's possible You are not encrypting the string "TrainSchedule" but they are decrypting TrainSchedule along with the payload.
Either encrypt the header or tell them to separate the payload from the header before decrypting it and concatenate it after.
Or, they are only decrypting the payload and ignoring the header. Without looking at their code it's impossible to know.

decryption error occurring when using rsa in java.

My aim is to take in a message containing a challenge and an origin. On receiving this msg a rsa keypair must be generated which is then used to manipulate the data as shown below. Certain part of the data is encrypted using the generated public key. During authorization, that data must be decrypted with the private key. However, when i try to decrypt it is shows a decryption error. I have even printed different parts of the code just to check if the desired output is achieved which is why i know the private key taken from file is correct. I am unable to solve the decryption error. The specifications for the task require the use of rsa and not hybrid encryption. i have tried padding but that didnt help. please advice on how to solve this problem
package pam;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.security.*;
import java.security.spec.InvalidKeySpecException;
import java.security.spec.PKCS8EncodedKeySpec;
import java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec;
import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.KeyGenerator;
import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
import javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter;
import com.sun.jersey.core.util.Base64;
class Test
{
public static void kpgen(int numBits, String s) throws Exception
{
if(s.length()!=64)
{
System.out.println("invalid entry");
}
else
{
KeyPairGenerator keygen = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA");
KeyPair keyPair = keygen.genKeyPair();
PrivateKey privateKey = keyPair.getPrivate();
PublicKey publicKey = keyPair.getPublic();
System.out.println("pk: "+privateKey);
System.out.println("pubk: "+publicKey);
String fileBase = "f:\\tempKey"; //WRITING PVT KEY TO FILE
try (FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(fileBase + ".key"))
{
out.write(keyPair.getPrivate().getEncoded());
}
try (FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(fileBase + ".pub"))
{
out.write(keyPair.getPublic().getEncoded());
}
System.out.println("Key pair : " + Base64.encode(String.valueOf(keyPair)));
MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
byte[] digest = md.digest(keyPair.toString().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
String sha256 = DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(digest).toLowerCase();
System.out.println("Hash value: "+sha256);
String ch = s.substring(0,32);
String or = s.substring(32,64);
System.out.println("Challenge: "+ch);
System.out.println("Origin: "+or);
MessageDigest md1 = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
byte[] digest1 = md1.digest(privateKey.toString().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
String sha = DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(digest1).toLowerCase();
or = or + sha;
System.out.println("String kh: "+or);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, publicKey);
byte[] keyHandle = cipher.doFinal(or.getBytes());
System.out.println("Key Handle: "+keyHandle);
String f = "f:\\keyList.pub";
Key pub = getKeyFromFile(f);
System.out.println("Attestation Public Key: "+pub);
PrivateKey pk = (PrivateKey) getPvtKey("f:\\keyList.key");
Signature rsa = Signature.getInstance("SHA1withRSA");
rsa.initSign(pk);
rsa.update(ch.getBytes());
byte[] sc = rsa.sign();
System.out.println("Signed challenge: "+sc);
String rm = publicKey.toString() + pub + sc + keyHandle;
System.out.println("Response Msg: " +rm);
}
}
public static Key getKeyFromFile(String fileName) throws Exception
{
byte[] bytes = Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(fileName));
X509EncodedKeySpec ks = new X509EncodedKeySpec(bytes);
KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
PublicKey pub = kf.generatePublic(ks);
return pub;
}
public static PrivateKey getPvtKey(String s) throws IOException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeySpecException
{
byte[] bytes = Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(s));
PKCS8EncodedKeySpec ks = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(bytes);
KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
PrivateKey pvt = kf.generatePrivate(ks);
return pvt;
}
public static void auth(String s) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, Exception, IOException
{
String chal = s.substring(0, 32);
String origin = s.substring(32,64);
String kh = s.substring(64);
byte[] kh1 = kh.getBytes();
PrivateKey pvtKey = getPvtKey("f:\\tempKey.key"); //READING THE PRIVATE KEY MADE IN KPGEN
System.out.println("pk: "+pvtKey);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, pvtKey);
byte[] keyHandle = cipher.doFinal(kh1);
String or = keyHandle.toString().substring(0, (kh.length()/2));
String pk = keyHandle.toString().substring(kh.length()/2);
int c = 0;
if(or.equals(origin))
{
c++;
}
else
{
System.out.println("Bad Key Handle: Invalid Origin");
}
if(pk.equals(pvtKey.toString()))
{
c++;
}
else
{
System.out.println("Bad Key Handle: invalid private key");
}
if(c==2)
{
Signature rsa = Signature.getInstance("SHA1withRSA");
rsa.initSign((PrivateKey) pvtKey);
rsa.update(chal.getBytes());
byte[] sc = rsa.sign();
System.out.println("Signed Challenge: "+sc);
}
else
System.out.println("error");
}
}

You have multiple (many) issues in your code with the encryption
First - encode properly your data, String in Java is to represent printable characters. As soon as you work with encryption (working on byte[] level), you need to encode or decode the values.
Example - your code will print the "keyHandle", it's a byte array object hash, not really the encrypted data itself
byte[] keyHandle = cipher.doFinal(or.getBytes());
System.out.println("Key Handle: "+keyHandle);
...
String rm = publicKey.toString() + pub + sc + keyHandle;
Use at hex or base64 encoding to print out the output. The same applies to the signature.
I am unable to solve the decryption error.
String kh = s.substring(64);
byte[] kh1 = kh.getBytes();
..
byte[] keyHandle = cipher.doFinal(kh1);
And you simply assume you can decrypt some random substring? Encrypting using RSA will produce output of size of the key (e.g. 2048 bits) and you have to store and decrypt as whole, not any substring.
As a learning exercise - try to simply encrypt and decrypt, encode, decode to learn the primitives you can (re)use.

AES decryption, first block garbage [duplicate]

What's wrong with the following example?
The problem is that the first part of the decrypted string is nonsense. However, the rest is fine, I get...
Result: `£eB6O�geS��i are you? Have a nice day.
#Test
public void testEncrypt() {
try {
String s = "Hello there. How are you? Have a nice day.";
// Generate key
KeyGenerator kgen = KeyGenerator.getInstance("AES");
kgen.init(128);
SecretKey aesKey = kgen.generateKey();
// Encrypt cipher
Cipher encryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
encryptCipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, aesKey);
// Encrypt
ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
CipherOutputStream cipherOutputStream = new CipherOutputStream(outputStream, encryptCipher);
cipherOutputStream.write(s.getBytes());
cipherOutputStream.flush();
cipherOutputStream.close();
byte[] encryptedBytes = outputStream.toByteArray();
// Decrypt cipher
Cipher decryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(aesKey.getEncoded());
decryptCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesKey, ivParameterSpec);
// Decrypt
outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
ByteArrayInputStream inStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(encryptedBytes);
CipherInputStream cipherInputStream = new CipherInputStream(inStream, decryptCipher);
byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
int bytesRead;
while ((bytesRead = cipherInputStream.read(buf)) >= 0) {
outputStream.write(buf, 0, bytesRead);
}
System.out.println("Result: " + new String(outputStream.toByteArray()));
}
catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}

Lot of people including myself face lot of issues in making this work due to missing some information like, forgetting to convert to Base64, initialization vectors, character set, etc. So I thought of making a fully functional code.
Hope this will be useful to you all:
To compile you need additional Apache Commons Codec jar, which is available here:
http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-codec/download_codec.cgi
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
public class Encryptor {
public static String encrypt(String key, String initVector, String value) {
try {
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
System.out.println("encrypted string: "
+ Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted));
return Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String decrypt(String key, String initVector, String encrypted) {
try {
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(Base64.decodeBase64(encrypted));
return new String(original);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
String key = "Bar12345Bar12345"; // 128 bit key
String initVector = "RandomInitVector"; // 16 bytes IV
System.out.println(decrypt(key, initVector,
encrypt(key, initVector, "Hello World")));
}
}

In this answer I choose to approach the "Simple Java AES encrypt/decrypt example" main theme and not the specific debugging question because I think this will profit most readers.
This is a simple summary of my blog post about AES encryption in Java so I recommend reading through it before implementing anything. I will however still provide a simple example to use and give some pointers what to watch out for.
In this example I will choose to use authenticated encryption with Galois/Counter Mode or GCM mode. The reason is that in most case you want integrity and authenticity in combination with confidentiality (read more in the blog).
AES-GCM Encryption/Decryption Tutorial
Here are the steps required to encrypt/decrypt with AES-GCM with the Java Cryptography Architecture (JCA). Do not mix with other examples, as subtle differences may make your code utterly insecure.
1. Create Key
As it depends on your use-case, I will assume the simplest case: a random secret key.
SecureRandom secureRandom = new SecureRandom();
byte[] key = new byte[16];
secureRandom.nextBytes(key);
SecretKey secretKey = SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
Important:
always use a strong pseudorandom number generator like SecureRandom
use 16 byte / 128 bit long key (or more - but more is seldom needed)
if you want a key derived from a user password, look into a password hash function (or KDF) with stretching property like PBKDF2 or bcrypt
if you want a key derived from other sources, use a proper key derivation function (KDF) like HKDF (Java implementation here). Do not use simple cryptographic hashes for that (like SHA-256).
2. Create the Initialization Vector
An initialization vector (IV) is used so that the same secret key will create different cipher texts.
byte[] iv = new byte[12]; //NEVER REUSE THIS IV WITH SAME KEY
secureRandom.nextBytes(iv);
Important:
never reuse the same IV with the same key (very important in GCM/CTR mode)
the IV must be unique (ie. use random IV or a counter)
the IV is not required to be secret
always use a strong pseudorandom number generator like SecureRandom
12 byte IV is the correct choice for AES-GCM mode
3. Encrypt with IV and Key
final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/GCM/NoPadding");
GCMParameterSpec parameterSpec = new GCMParameterSpec(128, iv); //128 bit auth tag length
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKey, parameterSpec);
byte[] cipherText = cipher.doFinal(plainText);
Important:
use 16 byte / 128 bit authentication tag (used to verify integrity/authenticity)
the authentication tag will be automatically appended to the cipher text (in the JCA implementation)
since GCM behaves like a stream cipher, no padding is required
use CipherInputStream when encrypting large chunks of data
want additional (non-secret) data checked if it was changed? You may want to use associated data with cipher.updateAAD(associatedData); More here.
3. Serialize to Single Message
Just append IV and ciphertext. As stated above, the IV doesn't need to be secret.
ByteBuffer byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(iv.length + cipherText.length);
byteBuffer.put(iv);
byteBuffer.put(cipherText);
byte[] cipherMessage = byteBuffer.array();
Optionally encode with Base64 if you need a string representation. Either use Android's or Java 8's built-in implementation (do not use Apache Commons Codec - it's an awful implementation). Encoding is used to "convert" byte arrays to string representation to make it ASCII safe e.g.:
String base64CipherMessage = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(cipherMessage);
4. Prepare Decryption: Deserialize
If you have encoded the message, first decode it to byte array:
byte[] cipherMessage = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64CipherMessage)
Important:
be careful to validate input parameters, so to avoid denial of service attacks by allocating too much memory.
5. Decrypt
Initialize the cipher and set the same parameters as with the encryption:
final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/GCM/NoPadding");
//use first 12 bytes for iv
AlgorithmParameterSpec gcmIv = new GCMParameterSpec(128, cipherMessage, 0, 12);
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKey, gcmIv);
//use everything from 12 bytes on as ciphertext
byte[] plainText = cipher.doFinal(cipherMessage, 12, cipherMessage.length - 12);
Important:
don't forget to add associated data with cipher.updateAAD(associatedData); if you added it during encryption.
A working code snippet can be found in this gist.
Note that most recent Android (SDK 21+) and Java (7+) implementations should have AES-GCM. Older versions may lack it. I still choose this mode, since it is easier to implement in addition to being more efficient compared to similar mode of Encrypt-then-Mac (with e.g. AES-CBC + HMAC). See this article on how to implement AES-CBC with HMAC.

Here a solution without Apache Commons Codec's Base64:
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
public class AdvancedEncryptionStandard
{
private byte[] key;
private static final String ALGORITHM = "AES";
public AdvancedEncryptionStandard(byte[] key)
{
this.key = key;
}
/**
* Encrypts the given plain text
*
* #param plainText The plain text to encrypt
*/
public byte[] encrypt(byte[] plainText) throws Exception
{
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, ALGORITHM);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(ALGORITHM);
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return cipher.doFinal(plainText);
}
/**
* Decrypts the given byte array
*
* #param cipherText The data to decrypt
*/
public byte[] decrypt(byte[] cipherText) throws Exception
{
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, ALGORITHM);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(ALGORITHM);
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return cipher.doFinal(cipherText);
}
}
Usage example:
byte[] encryptionKey = "MZygpewJsCpRrfOr".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
byte[] plainText = "Hello world!".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
AdvancedEncryptionStandard advancedEncryptionStandard = new AdvancedEncryptionStandard(
encryptionKey);
byte[] cipherText = advancedEncryptionStandard.encrypt(plainText);
byte[] decryptedCipherText = advancedEncryptionStandard.decrypt(cipherText);
System.out.println(new String(plainText));
System.out.println(new String(cipherText));
System.out.println(new String(decryptedCipherText));
Prints:
Hello world!
դ;��LA+�ߙb*
Hello world!

Looks to me like you are not dealing properly with your Initialization Vector (IV).
It's been a long time since I last read about AES, IVs and block chaining, but your line
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(aesKey.getEncoded());
does not seem to be OK. In the case of AES, you can think of the initialization vector as the "initial state" of a cipher instance, and this state is a bit of information that you can not get from your key but from the actual computation of the encrypting cipher. (One could argue that if the IV could be extracted from the key, then it would be of no use, as the key is already given to the cipher instance during its init phase).
Therefore, you should get the IV as a byte[] from the cipher instance at the end of your encryption
cipherOutputStream.close();
byte[] iv = encryptCipher.getIV();
and you should initialize your Cipher in DECRYPT_MODE with this byte[] :
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(iv);
Then, your decryption should be OK.
Hope this helps.

The IV that your using for decryption is incorrect. Replace this code
//Decrypt cipher
Cipher decryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(aesKey.getEncoded());
decryptCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesKey, ivParameterSpec);
With this code
//Decrypt cipher
Cipher decryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(encryptCipher.getIV());
decryptCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesKey, ivParameterSpec);
And that should solve your problem.
Below includes an example of a simple AES class in Java. I do not recommend using this class in production environments, as it may not account for all of the specific needs of your application.
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException;
import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException;
import javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import java.util.Base64;
public class AES
{
public static byte[] encrypt(final byte[] keyBytes, final byte[] ivBytes, final byte[] messageBytes) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
return AES.transform(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, keyBytes, ivBytes, messageBytes);
}
public static byte[] decrypt(final byte[] keyBytes, final byte[] ivBytes, final byte[] messageBytes) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
return AES.transform(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keyBytes, ivBytes, messageBytes);
}
private static byte[] transform(final int mode, final byte[] keyBytes, final byte[] ivBytes, final byte[] messageBytes) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
final SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "AES");
final IvParameterSpec ivSpec = new IvParameterSpec(ivBytes);
byte[] transformedBytes = null;
try
{
final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CTR/NoPadding");
cipher.init(mode, keySpec, ivSpec);
transformedBytes = cipher.doFinal(messageBytes);
}
catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException | NoSuchPaddingException | IllegalBlockSizeException | BadPaddingException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
return transformedBytes;
}
public static void main(final String[] args) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
//Retrieved from a protected local file.
//Do not hard-code and do not version control.
final String base64Key = "ABEiM0RVZneImaq7zN3u/w==";
//Retrieved from a protected database.
//Do not hard-code and do not version control.
final String shadowEntry = "AAECAwQFBgcICQoLDA0ODw==:ZtrkahwcMzTu7e/WuJ3AZmF09DE=";
//Extract the iv and the ciphertext from the shadow entry.
final String[] shadowData = shadowEntry.split(":");
final String base64Iv = shadowData[0];
final String base64Ciphertext = shadowData[1];
//Convert to raw bytes.
final byte[] keyBytes = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64Key);
final byte[] ivBytes = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64Iv);
final byte[] encryptedBytes = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64Ciphertext);
//Decrypt data and do something with it.
final byte[] decryptedBytes = AES.decrypt(keyBytes, ivBytes, encryptedBytes);
//Use non-blocking SecureRandom implementation for the new IV.
final SecureRandom secureRandom = new SecureRandom();
//Generate a new IV.
secureRandom.nextBytes(ivBytes);
//At this point instead of printing to the screen,
//one should replace the old shadow entry with the new one.
System.out.println("Old Shadow Entry = " + shadowEntry);
System.out.println("Decrytped Shadow Data = " + new String(decryptedBytes, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
System.out.println("New Shadow Entry = " + Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(ivBytes) + ":" + Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(AES.encrypt(keyBytes, ivBytes, decryptedBytes)));
}
}
Note that AES has nothing to do with encoding, which is why I chose to handle it separately and without the need of any third party libraries.

Online Editor Runnable version:-
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
//import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
import java.util.Base64;
public class Encryptor {
public static String encrypt(String key, String initVector, String value) {
try {
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
//System.out.println("encrypted string: "
// + Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted));
//return Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted);
String s = new String(Base64.getEncoder().encode(encrypted));
return s;
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String decrypt(String key, String initVector, String encrypted) {
try {
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(Base64.getDecoder().decode(encrypted));
return new String(original);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
String key = "Bar12345Bar12345"; // 128 bit key
String initVector = "RandomInitVector"; // 16 bytes IV
System.out.println(encrypt(key, initVector, "Hello World"));
System.out.println(decrypt(key, initVector, encrypt(key, initVector, "Hello World")));
}
}

This is an improvement over the accepted answer.
Changes:
(1) Using random IV and prepend it to the encrypted text
(2) Using SHA-256 to generate a key from a passphrase
(3) No dependency on Apache Commons
public static void main(String[] args) throws GeneralSecurityException {
String plaintext = "Hello world";
String passphrase = "My passphrase";
String encrypted = encrypt(passphrase, plaintext);
String decrypted = decrypt(passphrase, encrypted);
System.out.println(encrypted);
System.out.println(decrypted);
}
private static SecretKeySpec getKeySpec(String passphrase) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException {
MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
return new SecretKeySpec(digest.digest(passphrase.getBytes(UTF_8)), "AES");
}
private static Cipher getCipher() throws NoSuchPaddingException, NoSuchAlgorithmException {
return Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
}
public static String encrypt(String passphrase, String value) throws GeneralSecurityException {
byte[] initVector = new byte[16];
SecureRandom.getInstanceStrong().nextBytes(initVector);
Cipher cipher = getCipher();
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, getKeySpec(passphrase), new IvParameterSpec(initVector));
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
return DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(initVector) +
DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(encrypted);
}
public static String decrypt(String passphrase, String encrypted) throws GeneralSecurityException {
byte[] initVector = DatatypeConverter.parseBase64Binary(encrypted.substring(0, 24));
Cipher cipher = getCipher();
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, getKeySpec(passphrase), new IvParameterSpec(initVector));
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(DatatypeConverter.parseBase64Binary(encrypted.substring(24)));
return new String(original);
}

It's often the good idea to rely on standard library provided solution:
private static void stackOverflow15554296()
throws
NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException,
InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException,
BadPaddingException
{
// prepare key
KeyGenerator keygen = KeyGenerator.getInstance("AES");
SecretKey aesKey = keygen.generateKey();
String aesKeyForFutureUse = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(
aesKey.getEncoded()
);
// cipher engine
Cipher aesCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/ECB/PKCS5Padding");
// cipher input
aesCipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, aesKey);
byte[] clearTextBuff = "Text to encode".getBytes();
byte[] cipherTextBuff = aesCipher.doFinal(clearTextBuff);
// recreate key
byte[] aesKeyBuff = Base64.getDecoder().decode(aesKeyForFutureUse);
SecretKey aesDecryptKey = new SecretKeySpec(aesKeyBuff, "AES");
// decipher input
aesCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesDecryptKey);
byte[] decipheredBuff = aesCipher.doFinal(cipherTextBuff);
System.out.println(new String(decipheredBuff));
}
This prints "Text to encode".
Solution is based on Java Cryptography Architecture Reference Guide and https://stackoverflow.com/a/20591539/146745 answer.

Another solution using java.util.Base64 with Spring Boot
Encryptor Class
package com.jmendoza.springboot.crypto.cipher;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.util.Base64;
#Component
public class Encryptor {
#Value("${security.encryptor.key}")
private byte[] key;
#Value("${security.encryptor.algorithm}")
private String algorithm;
public String encrypt(String plainText) throws Exception {
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, algorithm);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(algorithm);
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return new String(Base64.getEncoder().encode(cipher.doFinal(plainText.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8))));
}
public String decrypt(String cipherText) throws Exception {
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, algorithm);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(algorithm);
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return new String(cipher.doFinal(Base64.getDecoder().decode(cipherText)));
}
}
EncryptorController Class
package com.jmendoza.springboot.crypto.controller;
import com.jmendoza.springboot.crypto.cipher.Encryptor;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
#RestController
#RequestMapping("/cipher")
public class EncryptorController {
#Autowired
Encryptor encryptor;
#GetMapping(value = "encrypt/{value}")
public String encrypt(#PathVariable("value") final String value) throws Exception {
return encryptor.encrypt(value);
}
#GetMapping(value = "decrypt/{value}")
public String decrypt(#PathVariable("value") final String value) throws Exception {
return encryptor.decrypt(value);
}
}
application.properties
server.port=8082
security.encryptor.algorithm=AES
security.encryptor.key=M8jFt46dfJMaiJA0
Example
http://localhost:8082/cipher/encrypt/jmendoza
2h41HH8Shzc4BRU3hVDOXA==
http://localhost:8082/cipher/decrypt/2h41HH8Shzc4BRU3hVDOXA==
jmendoza

Optimized version of the accepted answer.
no 3rd party libs
includes IV into the encrypted message (can be public)
password can be of any length
Code:
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.util.Base64;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
public class Encryptor {
public static byte[] getRandomInitialVector() {
try {
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
SecureRandom randomSecureRandom = SecureRandom.getInstance("SHA1PRNG");
byte[] initVector = new byte[cipher.getBlockSize()];
randomSecureRandom.nextBytes(initVector);
return initVector;
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static byte[] passwordTo16BitKey(String password) {
try {
byte[] srcBytes = password.getBytes("UTF-8");
byte[] dstBytes = new byte[16];
if (srcBytes.length == 16) {
return srcBytes;
}
if (srcBytes.length < 16) {
for (int i = 0; i < dstBytes.length; i++) {
dstBytes[i] = (byte) ((srcBytes[i % srcBytes.length]) * (srcBytes[(i + 1) % srcBytes.length]));
}
} else if (srcBytes.length > 16) {
for (int i = 0; i < srcBytes.length; i++) {
dstBytes[i % dstBytes.length] += srcBytes[i];
}
}
return dstBytes;
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String encrypt(String key, String value) {
return encrypt(passwordTo16BitKey(key), value);
}
public static String encrypt(byte[] key, String value) {
try {
byte[] initVector = Encryptor.getRandomInitialVector();
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector);
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
return Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(encrypted) + " " + Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(initVector);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String decrypt(String key, String encrypted) {
return decrypt(passwordTo16BitKey(key), encrypted);
}
public static String decrypt(byte[] key, String encrypted) {
try {
String[] encryptedParts = encrypted.split(" ");
byte[] initVector = Base64.getDecoder().decode(encryptedParts[1]);
if (initVector.length != 16) {
return null;
}
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector);
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(Base64.getDecoder().decode(encryptedParts[0]));
return new String(original);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
}
Usage:
String key = "Password of any length.";
String encrypted = Encryptor.encrypt(key, "Hello World");
String decrypted = Encryptor.decrypt(key, encrypted);
System.out.println(encrypted);
System.out.println(decrypted);
Example output:
QngBg+Qc5+F8HQsksgfyXg== yDfYiIHTqOOjc0HRNdr1Ng==
Hello World

encrypt and encode URL parameters spring mvc

I am writing a Spring mvc app and it needs to send an email with a link and encrypted params. The user will click on the link and I need to decrypt the params in the new page. So I am writing a util class to encrypt and decrypt along with encoding and decoding the parameters.
When I run my stand alone java class(using for testing) - I get the following error when the decryption is called(encrypting, encoding, decoding works fine).
java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException: Wrong IV length: must be 16 bytes long
at com.sun.crypto.provider.CipherCore.init(CipherCore.java:430)
at com.sun.crypto.provider.AESCipher.engineInit(AESCipher.java:217)
at javax.crypto.Cipher.implInit(Cipher.java:791)
at javax.crypto.Cipher.chooseProvider(Cipher.java:849)
at javax.crypto.Cipher.init(Cipher.java:1348)
My class is below
import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.ObjectInput;
import java.io.ObjectInputStream;
import java.io.ObjectOutput;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;
import java.net.URLEncoder;
import java.security.MessageDigest;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
public class TestEncryptionEncode2 {
private String keyString = "asdfgh";
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
TestEncryptionEncode2 api = new TestEncryptionEncode2();
String input = "abcdwer.comq1234";
try {
String[] encrypted = api.encryptObject(input);
// url may differ.. based upon project initial context
System.out.println("http://localhost:8080/view?d="+encrypted[0]+"&v="+encrypted[1]);
Object obj = api.decryptObject(encrypted[0], encrypted[1]);
System.out.println("Object Decrypted: "+obj.toString());
}catch(Exception e) {
//logger.debug("Unable to encrypt view id: "+id, e);
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("DONEE ");
}
private String[] encryptObject(Object obj) throws Exception {
ByteArrayOutputStream stream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
ObjectOutput out = new ObjectOutputStream(stream);
try {
// Serialize the object
out.writeObject(obj);
byte[] serialized = stream.toByteArray();
System.out.println("serialized "+serialized[0]);
// Setup the cipher and Init Vector
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
byte[] iv = new byte[cipher.getBlockSize()];
System.out.println("cipher.getBlockSize() "+cipher.getBlockSize());
System.out.println("iv.length "+iv.length);
new SecureRandom().nextBytes(iv);
IvParameterSpec ivSpec = new IvParameterSpec(iv);
// Hash the key with SHA-256 and trim the output to 128-bit for the key
MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
digest.update(keyString.getBytes());
byte[] key = new byte[16];
System.arraycopy(digest.digest(), 0, key, 0, key.length);
SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
// encrypt
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, keySpec, ivSpec);
// Encrypt & Encode the input
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(serialized);
byte[] base64Encoded = Base64.encodeBase64(encrypted);
String base64String = new String(base64Encoded);
String urlEncodedData = URLEncoder.encode(base64String,"UTF-8");
// Encode the Init Vector
byte[] base64IV = Base64.encodeBase64(iv);
String base64IVString = new String(base64IV);
String urlEncodedIV = URLEncoder.encode(base64IVString, "UTF-8");
System.out.println("urlEncodedData.length "+urlEncodedData.length());
System.out.println("urlEncodedIV.length "+urlEncodedIV.length());
return new String[] {urlEncodedData, urlEncodedIV};
}finally {
stream.close();
out.close();
}
}
/**
* Decrypts the String and serializes the object
* #param base64Data
* #param base64IV
* #return
* #throws Exception
*/
public Object decryptObject(String base64Data, String base64IV) throws Exception {
System.out.println("decryptObject "+base64Data);
System.out.println("decryptObject "+base64IV);
// Decode the data
byte[] encryptedData = Base64.decodeBase64(base64Data.getBytes());
// Decode the Init Vector
byte[] rawIV = Base64.decodeBase64(base64IV.getBytes());
System.out.println("rawIV "+rawIV.length);
for (int i=0;i < rawIV.length;i++ ){
System.out.println("---------"+rawIV[i]);
}
// Configure the Cipher
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivSpec = new IvParameterSpec(rawIV);
MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
digest.update(keyString.getBytes());
byte[] key = new byte[16];
System.arraycopy(digest.digest(), 0, key, 0, key.length);
SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keySpec, ivSpec); //////////////////////////////This is the error line
// Decrypt the data..
byte[] decrypted = cipher.doFinal(encryptedData);
// Deserialize the object
ByteArrayInputStream stream = new ByteArrayInputStream(decrypted);
ObjectInput in = new ObjectInputStream(stream);
Object obj = null;
try {
obj = in.readObject();
System.out.println("objobj "+obj);
}
catch(Exception e) {
//logger.debug("Unable to encrypt view id: "+id, e);
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
stream.close();
in.close();
}
return obj;
}
}
This is the error line - cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keySpec, ivSpec);
Do I need to add anything else? Thanks.
EDIT: Thanks, thanks worked. For some reason, I thought I am already decoding the data.
EDIT2: If the text to decode has + in it, then the decoded text will have space instead of +. So I had to replace all the spaces with + back when decrypting. Hopefully this helps someone.

The decryption process should be just reverse of encryption process.
Here in encryption you are doing URL encoding before returning it to user. So you must do URL decoding first in your decryption process.
Here is complete decryption process working with URL decoding:
public Object decryptObject(String base64Data, String base64IV) throws Exception {
System.out.println("decryptObject " + base64Data);
System.out.println("decryptObject " + base64IV);
String urlDecodedData=URLDecoder.decode(base64Data,"UTF-8");
// Decode the data
byte[] encryptedData = Base64.decodeBase64(urlDecodedData.getBytes());
String urlDecodedIV=URLDecoder.decode(base64IV,"UTF-8");
// Decode the Init Vector
byte[] rawIV = Base64.decodeBase64(urlDecodedIV.getBytes());
System.out.println("rawIV " + rawIV.length);
// Configure the Cipher
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivSpec = new IvParameterSpec(rawIV);
MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
digest.update(keyString.getBytes());
byte[] key = new byte[16];
System.arraycopy(digest.digest(), 0, key, 0, key.length);
SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keySpec, ivSpec); //////////////////////////////This is the error line
// Decrypt the data..
byte[] decrypted = cipher.doFinal(encryptedData);
// Deserialize the object
ByteArrayInputStream stream = new ByteArrayInputStream(decrypted);
ObjectInput in = new ObjectInputStream(stream);
Object obj = null;
try {
obj = in.readObject();
System.out.println("objobj " + obj);
} catch (Exception e) {
//logger.debug("Unable to encrypt view id: "+id, e);
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
stream.close();
in.close();
}
return obj;
}

Initial bytes incorrect after Java AES/CBC decryption

What's wrong with the following example?
The problem is that the first part of the decrypted string is nonsense. However, the rest is fine, I get...
Result: `£eB6O�geS��i are you? Have a nice day.
#Test
public void testEncrypt() {
try {
String s = "Hello there. How are you? Have a nice day.";
// Generate key
KeyGenerator kgen = KeyGenerator.getInstance("AES");
kgen.init(128);
SecretKey aesKey = kgen.generateKey();
// Encrypt cipher
Cipher encryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
encryptCipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, aesKey);
// Encrypt
ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
CipherOutputStream cipherOutputStream = new CipherOutputStream(outputStream, encryptCipher);
cipherOutputStream.write(s.getBytes());
cipherOutputStream.flush();
cipherOutputStream.close();
byte[] encryptedBytes = outputStream.toByteArray();
// Decrypt cipher
Cipher decryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(aesKey.getEncoded());
decryptCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesKey, ivParameterSpec);
// Decrypt
outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
ByteArrayInputStream inStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(encryptedBytes);
CipherInputStream cipherInputStream = new CipherInputStream(inStream, decryptCipher);
byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
int bytesRead;
while ((bytesRead = cipherInputStream.read(buf)) >= 0) {
outputStream.write(buf, 0, bytesRead);
}
System.out.println("Result: " + new String(outputStream.toByteArray()));
}
catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}

Lot of people including myself face lot of issues in making this work due to missing some information like, forgetting to convert to Base64, initialization vectors, character set, etc. So I thought of making a fully functional code.
Hope this will be useful to you all:
To compile you need additional Apache Commons Codec jar, which is available here:
http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-codec/download_codec.cgi
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
public class Encryptor {
public static String encrypt(String key, String initVector, String value) {
try {
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
System.out.println("encrypted string: "
+ Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted));
return Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String decrypt(String key, String initVector, String encrypted) {
try {
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(Base64.decodeBase64(encrypted));
return new String(original);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
String key = "Bar12345Bar12345"; // 128 bit key
String initVector = "RandomInitVector"; // 16 bytes IV
System.out.println(decrypt(key, initVector,
encrypt(key, initVector, "Hello World")));
}
}

In this answer I choose to approach the "Simple Java AES encrypt/decrypt example" main theme and not the specific debugging question because I think this will profit most readers.
This is a simple summary of my blog post about AES encryption in Java so I recommend reading through it before implementing anything. I will however still provide a simple example to use and give some pointers what to watch out for.
In this example I will choose to use authenticated encryption with Galois/Counter Mode or GCM mode. The reason is that in most case you want integrity and authenticity in combination with confidentiality (read more in the blog).
AES-GCM Encryption/Decryption Tutorial
Here are the steps required to encrypt/decrypt with AES-GCM with the Java Cryptography Architecture (JCA). Do not mix with other examples, as subtle differences may make your code utterly insecure.
1. Create Key
As it depends on your use-case, I will assume the simplest case: a random secret key.
SecureRandom secureRandom = new SecureRandom();
byte[] key = new byte[16];
secureRandom.nextBytes(key);
SecretKey secretKey = SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
Important:
always use a strong pseudorandom number generator like SecureRandom
use 16 byte / 128 bit long key (or more - but more is seldom needed)
if you want a key derived from a user password, look into a password hash function (or KDF) with stretching property like PBKDF2 or bcrypt
if you want a key derived from other sources, use a proper key derivation function (KDF) like HKDF (Java implementation here). Do not use simple cryptographic hashes for that (like SHA-256).
2. Create the Initialization Vector
An initialization vector (IV) is used so that the same secret key will create different cipher texts.
byte[] iv = new byte[12]; //NEVER REUSE THIS IV WITH SAME KEY
secureRandom.nextBytes(iv);
Important:
never reuse the same IV with the same key (very important in GCM/CTR mode)
the IV must be unique (ie. use random IV or a counter)
the IV is not required to be secret
always use a strong pseudorandom number generator like SecureRandom
12 byte IV is the correct choice for AES-GCM mode
3. Encrypt with IV and Key
final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/GCM/NoPadding");
GCMParameterSpec parameterSpec = new GCMParameterSpec(128, iv); //128 bit auth tag length
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKey, parameterSpec);
byte[] cipherText = cipher.doFinal(plainText);
Important:
use 16 byte / 128 bit authentication tag (used to verify integrity/authenticity)
the authentication tag will be automatically appended to the cipher text (in the JCA implementation)
since GCM behaves like a stream cipher, no padding is required
use CipherInputStream when encrypting large chunks of data
want additional (non-secret) data checked if it was changed? You may want to use associated data with cipher.updateAAD(associatedData); More here.
3. Serialize to Single Message
Just append IV and ciphertext. As stated above, the IV doesn't need to be secret.
ByteBuffer byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(iv.length + cipherText.length);
byteBuffer.put(iv);
byteBuffer.put(cipherText);
byte[] cipherMessage = byteBuffer.array();
Optionally encode with Base64 if you need a string representation. Either use Android's or Java 8's built-in implementation (do not use Apache Commons Codec - it's an awful implementation). Encoding is used to "convert" byte arrays to string representation to make it ASCII safe e.g.:
String base64CipherMessage = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(cipherMessage);
4. Prepare Decryption: Deserialize
If you have encoded the message, first decode it to byte array:
byte[] cipherMessage = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64CipherMessage)
Important:
be careful to validate input parameters, so to avoid denial of service attacks by allocating too much memory.
5. Decrypt
Initialize the cipher and set the same parameters as with the encryption:
final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/GCM/NoPadding");
//use first 12 bytes for iv
AlgorithmParameterSpec gcmIv = new GCMParameterSpec(128, cipherMessage, 0, 12);
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKey, gcmIv);
//use everything from 12 bytes on as ciphertext
byte[] plainText = cipher.doFinal(cipherMessage, 12, cipherMessage.length - 12);
Important:
don't forget to add associated data with cipher.updateAAD(associatedData); if you added it during encryption.
A working code snippet can be found in this gist.
Note that most recent Android (SDK 21+) and Java (7+) implementations should have AES-GCM. Older versions may lack it. I still choose this mode, since it is easier to implement in addition to being more efficient compared to similar mode of Encrypt-then-Mac (with e.g. AES-CBC + HMAC). See this article on how to implement AES-CBC with HMAC.

Here a solution without Apache Commons Codec's Base64:
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
public class AdvancedEncryptionStandard
{
private byte[] key;
private static final String ALGORITHM = "AES";
public AdvancedEncryptionStandard(byte[] key)
{
this.key = key;
}
/**
* Encrypts the given plain text
*
* #param plainText The plain text to encrypt
*/
public byte[] encrypt(byte[] plainText) throws Exception
{
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, ALGORITHM);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(ALGORITHM);
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return cipher.doFinal(plainText);
}
/**
* Decrypts the given byte array
*
* #param cipherText The data to decrypt
*/
public byte[] decrypt(byte[] cipherText) throws Exception
{
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, ALGORITHM);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(ALGORITHM);
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return cipher.doFinal(cipherText);
}
}
Usage example:
byte[] encryptionKey = "MZygpewJsCpRrfOr".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
byte[] plainText = "Hello world!".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
AdvancedEncryptionStandard advancedEncryptionStandard = new AdvancedEncryptionStandard(
encryptionKey);
byte[] cipherText = advancedEncryptionStandard.encrypt(plainText);
byte[] decryptedCipherText = advancedEncryptionStandard.decrypt(cipherText);
System.out.println(new String(plainText));
System.out.println(new String(cipherText));
System.out.println(new String(decryptedCipherText));
Prints:
Hello world!
դ;��LA+�ߙb*
Hello world!

Looks to me like you are not dealing properly with your Initialization Vector (IV).
It's been a long time since I last read about AES, IVs and block chaining, but your line
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(aesKey.getEncoded());
does not seem to be OK. In the case of AES, you can think of the initialization vector as the "initial state" of a cipher instance, and this state is a bit of information that you can not get from your key but from the actual computation of the encrypting cipher. (One could argue that if the IV could be extracted from the key, then it would be of no use, as the key is already given to the cipher instance during its init phase).
Therefore, you should get the IV as a byte[] from the cipher instance at the end of your encryption
cipherOutputStream.close();
byte[] iv = encryptCipher.getIV();
and you should initialize your Cipher in DECRYPT_MODE with this byte[] :
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(iv);
Then, your decryption should be OK.
Hope this helps.

The IV that your using for decryption is incorrect. Replace this code
//Decrypt cipher
Cipher decryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(aesKey.getEncoded());
decryptCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesKey, ivParameterSpec);
With this code
//Decrypt cipher
Cipher decryptCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(encryptCipher.getIV());
decryptCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesKey, ivParameterSpec);
And that should solve your problem.
Below includes an example of a simple AES class in Java. I do not recommend using this class in production environments, as it may not account for all of the specific needs of your application.
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException;
import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException;
import javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import java.util.Base64;
public class AES
{
public static byte[] encrypt(final byte[] keyBytes, final byte[] ivBytes, final byte[] messageBytes) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
return AES.transform(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, keyBytes, ivBytes, messageBytes);
}
public static byte[] decrypt(final byte[] keyBytes, final byte[] ivBytes, final byte[] messageBytes) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
return AES.transform(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keyBytes, ivBytes, messageBytes);
}
private static byte[] transform(final int mode, final byte[] keyBytes, final byte[] ivBytes, final byte[] messageBytes) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
final SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "AES");
final IvParameterSpec ivSpec = new IvParameterSpec(ivBytes);
byte[] transformedBytes = null;
try
{
final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CTR/NoPadding");
cipher.init(mode, keySpec, ivSpec);
transformedBytes = cipher.doFinal(messageBytes);
}
catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException | NoSuchPaddingException | IllegalBlockSizeException | BadPaddingException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
return transformedBytes;
}
public static void main(final String[] args) throws InvalidKeyException, InvalidAlgorithmParameterException
{
//Retrieved from a protected local file.
//Do not hard-code and do not version control.
final String base64Key = "ABEiM0RVZneImaq7zN3u/w==";
//Retrieved from a protected database.
//Do not hard-code and do not version control.
final String shadowEntry = "AAECAwQFBgcICQoLDA0ODw==:ZtrkahwcMzTu7e/WuJ3AZmF09DE=";
//Extract the iv and the ciphertext from the shadow entry.
final String[] shadowData = shadowEntry.split(":");
final String base64Iv = shadowData[0];
final String base64Ciphertext = shadowData[1];
//Convert to raw bytes.
final byte[] keyBytes = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64Key);
final byte[] ivBytes = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64Iv);
final byte[] encryptedBytes = Base64.getDecoder().decode(base64Ciphertext);
//Decrypt data and do something with it.
final byte[] decryptedBytes = AES.decrypt(keyBytes, ivBytes, encryptedBytes);
//Use non-blocking SecureRandom implementation for the new IV.
final SecureRandom secureRandom = new SecureRandom();
//Generate a new IV.
secureRandom.nextBytes(ivBytes);
//At this point instead of printing to the screen,
//one should replace the old shadow entry with the new one.
System.out.println("Old Shadow Entry = " + shadowEntry);
System.out.println("Decrytped Shadow Data = " + new String(decryptedBytes, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
System.out.println("New Shadow Entry = " + Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(ivBytes) + ":" + Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(AES.encrypt(keyBytes, ivBytes, decryptedBytes)));
}
}
Note that AES has nothing to do with encoding, which is why I chose to handle it separately and without the need of any third party libraries.

Online Editor Runnable version:-
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
//import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
import java.util.Base64;
public class Encryptor {
public static String encrypt(String key, String initVector, String value) {
try {
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
//System.out.println("encrypted string: "
// + Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted));
//return Base64.encodeBase64String(encrypted);
String s = new String(Base64.getEncoder().encode(encrypted));
return s;
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String decrypt(String key, String initVector, String encrypted) {
try {
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector.getBytes("UTF-8"));
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(Base64.getDecoder().decode(encrypted));
return new String(original);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
String key = "Bar12345Bar12345"; // 128 bit key
String initVector = "RandomInitVector"; // 16 bytes IV
System.out.println(encrypt(key, initVector, "Hello World"));
System.out.println(decrypt(key, initVector, encrypt(key, initVector, "Hello World")));
}
}

This is an improvement over the accepted answer.
Changes:
(1) Using random IV and prepend it to the encrypted text
(2) Using SHA-256 to generate a key from a passphrase
(3) No dependency on Apache Commons
public static void main(String[] args) throws GeneralSecurityException {
String plaintext = "Hello world";
String passphrase = "My passphrase";
String encrypted = encrypt(passphrase, plaintext);
String decrypted = decrypt(passphrase, encrypted);
System.out.println(encrypted);
System.out.println(decrypted);
}
private static SecretKeySpec getKeySpec(String passphrase) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException {
MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
return new SecretKeySpec(digest.digest(passphrase.getBytes(UTF_8)), "AES");
}
private static Cipher getCipher() throws NoSuchPaddingException, NoSuchAlgorithmException {
return Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
}
public static String encrypt(String passphrase, String value) throws GeneralSecurityException {
byte[] initVector = new byte[16];
SecureRandom.getInstanceStrong().nextBytes(initVector);
Cipher cipher = getCipher();
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, getKeySpec(passphrase), new IvParameterSpec(initVector));
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
return DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(initVector) +
DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(encrypted);
}
public static String decrypt(String passphrase, String encrypted) throws GeneralSecurityException {
byte[] initVector = DatatypeConverter.parseBase64Binary(encrypted.substring(0, 24));
Cipher cipher = getCipher();
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, getKeySpec(passphrase), new IvParameterSpec(initVector));
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(DatatypeConverter.parseBase64Binary(encrypted.substring(24)));
return new String(original);
}

It's often the good idea to rely on standard library provided solution:
private static void stackOverflow15554296()
throws
NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException,
InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException,
BadPaddingException
{
// prepare key
KeyGenerator keygen = KeyGenerator.getInstance("AES");
SecretKey aesKey = keygen.generateKey();
String aesKeyForFutureUse = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(
aesKey.getEncoded()
);
// cipher engine
Cipher aesCipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/ECB/PKCS5Padding");
// cipher input
aesCipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, aesKey);
byte[] clearTextBuff = "Text to encode".getBytes();
byte[] cipherTextBuff = aesCipher.doFinal(clearTextBuff);
// recreate key
byte[] aesKeyBuff = Base64.getDecoder().decode(aesKeyForFutureUse);
SecretKey aesDecryptKey = new SecretKeySpec(aesKeyBuff, "AES");
// decipher input
aesCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesDecryptKey);
byte[] decipheredBuff = aesCipher.doFinal(cipherTextBuff);
System.out.println(new String(decipheredBuff));
}
This prints "Text to encode".
Solution is based on Java Cryptography Architecture Reference Guide and https://stackoverflow.com/a/20591539/146745 answer.

Another solution using java.util.Base64 with Spring Boot
Encryptor Class
package com.jmendoza.springboot.crypto.cipher;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.util.Base64;
#Component
public class Encryptor {
#Value("${security.encryptor.key}")
private byte[] key;
#Value("${security.encryptor.algorithm}")
private String algorithm;
public String encrypt(String plainText) throws Exception {
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, algorithm);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(algorithm);
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return new String(Base64.getEncoder().encode(cipher.doFinal(plainText.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8))));
}
public String decrypt(String cipherText) throws Exception {
SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(key, algorithm);
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(algorithm);
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKey);
return new String(cipher.doFinal(Base64.getDecoder().decode(cipherText)));
}
}
EncryptorController Class
package com.jmendoza.springboot.crypto.controller;
import com.jmendoza.springboot.crypto.cipher.Encryptor;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
#RestController
#RequestMapping("/cipher")
public class EncryptorController {
#Autowired
Encryptor encryptor;
#GetMapping(value = "encrypt/{value}")
public String encrypt(#PathVariable("value") final String value) throws Exception {
return encryptor.encrypt(value);
}
#GetMapping(value = "decrypt/{value}")
public String decrypt(#PathVariable("value") final String value) throws Exception {
return encryptor.decrypt(value);
}
}
application.properties
server.port=8082
security.encryptor.algorithm=AES
security.encryptor.key=M8jFt46dfJMaiJA0
Example
http://localhost:8082/cipher/encrypt/jmendoza
2h41HH8Shzc4BRU3hVDOXA==
http://localhost:8082/cipher/decrypt/2h41HH8Shzc4BRU3hVDOXA==
jmendoza

Optimized version of the accepted answer.
no 3rd party libs
includes IV into the encrypted message (can be public)
password can be of any length
Code:
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.util.Base64;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
public class Encryptor {
public static byte[] getRandomInitialVector() {
try {
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
SecureRandom randomSecureRandom = SecureRandom.getInstance("SHA1PRNG");
byte[] initVector = new byte[cipher.getBlockSize()];
randomSecureRandom.nextBytes(initVector);
return initVector;
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static byte[] passwordTo16BitKey(String password) {
try {
byte[] srcBytes = password.getBytes("UTF-8");
byte[] dstBytes = new byte[16];
if (srcBytes.length == 16) {
return srcBytes;
}
if (srcBytes.length < 16) {
for (int i = 0; i < dstBytes.length; i++) {
dstBytes[i] = (byte) ((srcBytes[i % srcBytes.length]) * (srcBytes[(i + 1) % srcBytes.length]));
}
} else if (srcBytes.length > 16) {
for (int i = 0; i < srcBytes.length; i++) {
dstBytes[i % dstBytes.length] += srcBytes[i];
}
}
return dstBytes;
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String encrypt(String key, String value) {
return encrypt(passwordTo16BitKey(key), value);
}
public static String encrypt(byte[] key, String value) {
try {
byte[] initVector = Encryptor.getRandomInitialVector();
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector);
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] encrypted = cipher.doFinal(value.getBytes());
return Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(encrypted) + " " + Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(initVector);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public static String decrypt(String key, String encrypted) {
return decrypt(passwordTo16BitKey(key), encrypted);
}
public static String decrypt(byte[] key, String encrypted) {
try {
String[] encryptedParts = encrypted.split(" ");
byte[] initVector = Base64.getDecoder().decode(encryptedParts[1]);
if (initVector.length != 16) {
return null;
}
IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(initVector);
SecretKeySpec skeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES");
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5PADDING");
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, iv);
byte[] original = cipher.doFinal(Base64.getDecoder().decode(encryptedParts[0]));
return new String(original);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
}
Usage:
String key = "Password of any length.";
String encrypted = Encryptor.encrypt(key, "Hello World");
String decrypted = Encryptor.decrypt(key, encrypted);
System.out.println(encrypted);
System.out.println(decrypted);
Example output:
QngBg+Qc5+F8HQsksgfyXg== yDfYiIHTqOOjc0HRNdr1Ng==
Hello World