jasypt message integrity

Question

I've been looking into ways to encrypt an authentication token that I need to pass from one site to another. Things i have learned so far are

• use a high level library.
• don't use ECB
• use a HMAC to provide message integrity.
• encrypt then hash

So in my search for such a easy to use high level open source java library I bumped into jasypt. But i have been digging a bit through the code and it seems not to use any HMAC at all. So i'm wondering if i shouldn't use this library and which alternatives are adequate. I prefer a java-only solution ( no C bindings ).

Answer 1

I would suggest Keyczar. This is a cryptography toolkit which once was developed by Google. It has Java, Python and C++ implementations. As far as I'm aware Keyczar was thoroughly tested. During that testing one timing attack was found and fixed. However this was the only case so far and I would consider it a fairly good bet.

The PDF file in chapter 8 provides some better information about HMAC. And if you look at the question »Should we MAC-then-encrypt or encrypt-then-MAC?« at crypto.SE you get a deeper answer to the Encrypt-then-MAC case.

Answer 2

I think bouncy castle would be an option that you can look into. I have personally used it and has lot of options.

Answer 3

I would recommend just using an authenticated encryption mode (e.g., GCM, EAX) instead of worrying about when you should compute your HMAC. BouncyCastle includes several options:

http://www.bouncycastle.org/docs/docs1.5on/org/bouncycastle/crypto/modes/AEADBlockCipher.html

(You might not have any associated data in your case; that's OK.)