CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroidencryptioncryptography
Monty
Monty

Reputation: 3215

Secure key for android database

Is there any algorithm to generate an encrypted key in android to secure a database?

I tried this PBE algorithm:

PBEKeySpec pbeKeySpec = new PBEKeySpec(password.toCharArray(), salt, 
    NUM_OF_ITERATIONS, KEY_SIZE);
SecretKeyFactory factoryKey = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance(PBE_ALGORITHM);
SecretKey tempKey = factoryKey.generateSecret(pbeKeySpec);
SecretKey secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(tempKey.getEncoded(), "AES");

But it generates the same key every time. Any other good algorithms for generating a secure key?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 194

Answers (2)

jbtule
jbtule

Reputation: 31799

Typically to achieve what you want you use your PBE key to encrypt/decrypt a random key (that you must store, keep it separate from your data as best you can) which you use to encrypt/decrypt your data. Then your data ciphertext, by itself, has no direct relation to your password without the encrypted keys.

Upvotes: 1

Peter Elliott
Peter Elliott

Reputation: 3322

To generate a random secret key, use the KeyGenerator class, with code something like this:

KeyGenerator kgen = KeyGenerator.getInstance("AES");
kgen.init(KEY_SIZE);
SecretKey skey = kgen.generateKey();

Note that you will obviously have to store this key securely somewhere if you wish to decrypt your database later, hence it may be worthwhile to pursue the PBE-based solution proposed in your question.

Upvotes: 2

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