50

I am implementing a demo for RSA Encryption and Decryption in Android. I can Perform Encryption very well, but In Decryption I get an Exception: >>java.security.InvalidKeyException: unknown key type passed to RSA.

    KeyPairGenerator kpg;
    KeyPair kp;
    PublicKey publicKey;
    PrivateKey privateKey;
    byte [] encryptedBytes,decryptedBytes;
    Cipher cipher,cipher1;
    String encrypted,decrypted;

    public String RSAEncrypt (final String plain) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException, InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException 
    {
        kpg = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA");
        kpg.initialize(1024);
        kp = kpg.genKeyPair();
        publicKey = kp.getPublic();
        privateKey = kp.getPrivate();

        cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
        cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, publicKey);
        encryptedBytes = cipher.doFinal(plain.getBytes());
        encrypted = new String(encryptedBytes);
        System.out.println("EEncrypted?????"+encrypted);
        return encrypted;

    }

    public String RSADecrypt (final String result) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException, InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException 
    {

        cipher1=Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
        cipher1.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, privateKey);
        decryptedBytes = cipher1.doFinal(result.getBytes());
        decrypted = new String(decryptedBytes);
        System.out.println("DDecrypted?????"+decrypted);
        return decrypted;

    }

And I am calling the function from here:

encrypt.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener()
        { 
            public void onClick(View arg0) 
            {
                    try
                    {
                        RSAEncrypt rsaencrypt=new RSAEncrypt();
                        rsaencrypt.RSAEncrypt(name);

                        result=rsaencrypt.RSAEncrypt(name);
                        Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), result.toString(),Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

                        System.out.println("Result:"+result);
                    }
                    catch(Exception e)
                    {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                        Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), e.toString(),Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                    }
            }
        });

        decrypt.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener()
        { 
            public void onClick(View arg0) 
            {
                {
                    try
                    {
                        RSAEncrypt rsadecrypt=new RSAEncrypt();

                        rsadecrypt.RSADecrypt(result);

                        ans=rsadecrypt.RSADecrypt(result);
                        System.out.println("Result is"+ans);
                        Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), ans.toString(),Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                    }
                    catch(Exception e)
                    {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                        Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), e.toString(),Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                        System.out.println("Exception is>>"+e);
                    }
            }
        });

5 Answers 5

51

In RSA you should use the public key for encryption and the private key for decryption.

Your sample code uses for encryption and decryption the public key - this can not work.

Hence in the decryption part you should initialize the cipher this way:

cipher1.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, privateKey);

Furthermor your code has a second significant bug:

You are converting a byte array with binary content to a String.

Never ever convert binary data to a String!

Strings are for string characters, not binary data. If you want to pack binary data into a String encode it to printable characters for example using Hex or Base64.

The following example uses the hexadecimal encoder fro org.apache.common.codec package - a third party library with has to be installed.

public byte[] RSAEncrypt(final String plain) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException,
        InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException {
    kpg = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA");
    kpg.initialize(2048);
    kp = kpg.genKeyPair();
    publicKey = kp.getPublic();
    privateKey = kp.getPrivate();

    cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
    cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, publicKey);
    encryptedBytes = cipher.doFinal(plain.getBytes());
    System.out.println("EEncrypted?????" + new String(org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Hex.encodeHex(encryptedBytes)));
    return encryptedBytes;
}

public String RSADecrypt(final byte[] encryptedBytes) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException,
        InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException {

    cipher1 = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
    cipher1.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, privateKey);
    decryptedBytes = cipher1.doFinal(encryptedBytes);
    decrypted = new String(decryptedBytes);
    System.out.println("DDecrypted?????" + decrypted);
    return decrypted;
}
10
  • Thanks a lot..You are Right..I had done Mistake in That..But Now I am getting Exception>> System.err(416): java.security.InvalidKeyException: unknown key type passed to RSA Please Help me..Thanks in Advance.. Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 10:12
  • 3
    Thanks for that. Just one remarks: keys are symmetrical. So You can either encode with public then decode with private (make sure to whom you send encrypted data) , OR, encode with private, then decode with public (to make sure who sent you the encrypted data). Doing the 2 (with 2 different key set), allow you to enforce both 'from who' and 'to whom' security aspects.
    – Pascal
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 13:47
  • 3
    The "encode with private" case in known as signature. But you should never directly sign data - always sign only the has otherwise you may run into some attacks (see IT security literature).
    – Robert
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 15:09
  • always sign only what? Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 11:40
  • "always sign only the hash" (SHA-256 or SHA-1 or ...)
    – Robert
    Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 11:53
14

My class:

package com.infovale.cripto;

import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.math.BigInteger;
import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
import java.security.KeyPair;
import java.security.KeyPairGenerator;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.PrivateKey;
import java.security.PublicKey;
import java.util.Arrays;

import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException;
import javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException;

public class RSA {

KeyPairGenerator kpg;
KeyPair kp;
PublicKey publicKey;
PrivateKey privateKey;
byte[] encryptedBytes, decryptedBytes;
Cipher cipher, cipher1;
String encrypted, decrypted;

public String Encrypt (String plain) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException, InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException 
{
    kpg = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA");
    kpg.initialize(1024);
    kp = kpg.genKeyPair();
    publicKey = kp.getPublic();
    privateKey = kp.getPrivate();

    cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
    cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, publicKey);
    encryptedBytes = cipher.doFinal(plain.getBytes());

    encrypted = bytesToString(encryptedBytes);
    return encrypted;

}

public String Decrypt (String result) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchPaddingException, InvalidKeyException, IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException 
{           

    cipher1=Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
    cipher1.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, privateKey);
    decryptedBytes = cipher1.doFinal(stringToBytes(result));
    decrypted = new String(decryptedBytes);
    return decrypted;

}

public  String bytesToString(byte[] b) {
    byte[] b2 = new byte[b.length + 1];
    b2[0] = 1;
    System.arraycopy(b, 0, b2, 1, b.length);
    return new BigInteger(b2).toString(36);
}

public  byte[] stringToBytes(String s) {
    byte[] b2 = new BigInteger(s, 36).toByteArray();
    return Arrays.copyOfRange(b2, 1, b2.length);
}
}
14

Here is an example for Android of:

  • generating a private/public RSA key pair
  • encrypting a string
  • decrypting the encrypted string

These methods deal with all the base 64 encoding/decoding.

    public void TestEncryptData(String dataToEncrypt) {
        // generate a new public/private key pair to test with (note. you should only do this once and keep them!)
        KeyPair kp = getKeyPair();

        PublicKey publicKey = kp.getPublic();
        byte[] publicKeyBytes = publicKey.getEncoded();
        String publicKeyBytesBase64 = new String(Base64.encode(publicKeyBytes, Base64.DEFAULT));

        PrivateKey privateKey = kp.getPrivate();
        byte[] privateKeyBytes = privateKey.getEncoded();
        String privateKeyBytesBase64 = new String(Base64.encode(privateKeyBytes, Base64.DEFAULT));

        // test encryption
        String encrypted = encryptRSAToString(dataToEncrypt, publicKeyBytesBase64);

        // test decryption
        String decrypted = decryptRSAToString(encrypted, privateKeyBytesBase64);
    }

    public static KeyPair getKeyPair() {
        KeyPair kp = null;
        try {
            KeyPairGenerator kpg = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA");
            kpg.initialize(2048);
            kp = kpg.generateKeyPair();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return kp;
    }

    public static String encryptRSAToString(String clearText, String publicKey) {
        String encryptedBase64 = "";
        try {
            KeyFactory keyFac = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
            KeySpec keySpec = new X509EncodedKeySpec(Base64.decode(publicKey.trim().getBytes(), Base64.DEFAULT));
            Key key = keyFac.generatePublic(keySpec);

            // get an RSA cipher object and print the provider
            final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA/ECB/OAEPWITHSHA-256ANDMGF1PADDING");
            // encrypt the plain text using the public key
            cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key);

            byte[] encryptedBytes = cipher.doFinal(clearText.getBytes("UTF-8"));
            encryptedBase64 = new String(Base64.encode(encryptedBytes, Base64.DEFAULT));
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return encryptedBase64.replaceAll("(\\r|\\n)", "");
    }

    public static String decryptRSAToString(String encryptedBase64, String privateKey) {

        String decryptedString = "";
        try {
            KeyFactory keyFac = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
            KeySpec keySpec = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(Base64.decode(privateKey.trim().getBytes(), Base64.DEFAULT));
            Key key = keyFac.generatePrivate(keySpec);

            // get an RSA cipher object and print the provider
            final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA/ECB/OAEPWITHSHA-256ANDMGF1PADDING");
            // encrypt the plain text using the public key
            cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key);

            byte[] encryptedBytes = Base64.decode(encryptedBase64, Base64.DEFAULT);
            byte[] decryptedBytes = cipher.doFinal(encryptedBytes);
            decryptedString = new String(decryptedBytes);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return decryptedString;
    }
0
1

I think the problem is that you should use the same key pair to encrypt and decrypt the cipher. Referring to the JavaDoc:

 genKeyPair() This will generate a new key pair every time it is called.
6
  • @jaredzhang..I edited my code..but I get the same Exception..Please Review my Edited code.. Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 9:06
  • @jaredzhang..I think you are right..But Problem is that Now I am getting java.lang.NullPointerException.. Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 9:29
  • your new code seems unclear, please ensure the private key you are using to decrypt is the same you generated previously.
    – jaredzhang
    Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 10:32
  • @jaredzhang..Hi..I have Edited my code again..so that..it seems clear to you..Please help me..and Thanks a lot..And see my question also..Exception I got is also Different as of now.... Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 10:40
  • @jaredzhang So this can not be used to send data from one app to another as receiver app will call genKeyPair() and will create different key. Any solution? Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 10:13
0

when using RSAEcvypt method, its fill PublicKey and private key. And when your Decrypt your generated byte[], your publicKey and privateKey being NULL. Because of that you get this error.

You should use your keys static;

enter code here

KeyPairGenerator kpg;
KeyPair kp;
static PublicKey publicKey;
static PrivateKey privateKey;
byte [] encryptedBytes,decryptedBytes;
Cipher cipher,cipher1;
String encrypted,decrypted;
1
  • Those are class properties, as method accessing those keys are not static, thus it is not necessary for properties to be static. In fact it is a very bad choice to have static properties specially when you might need to create multiple instances of class with different data values.
    – AaA
    Commented Aug 7, 2017 at 4:03

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