Encryption and Decryption with PBKDF2 and AES256 - practical example needed - how do I get the Derived key

Question

I am trying to understand how a derived key is obtained by using PBKDF2, with SHA256.

I am getting tangled up, and need a clear, easy to understand example.

What I have so far:

1. I have found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2 which has a an example, but with SHA1, with the following values:

   PASSWORD plnlrtfpijpuhqylxbgqiiyipieyxvfsavzgxbbcfusqkozwpngsyejqlmjsytrmd UTF8

   SALT A009C1A485912C6AE630D3E744240B04 HEX

   Hashing function SHA1

   Key Size 128

   Iterations 1000

2. I have been using https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef and can get the output 17EB4014C8C461C300E9B61518B9A18B which matches the derived key bytes in the Wikipedia example.

---

I have been working with https://mkyong.com/java/java-aes-encryption-and-decryption/ which has a method named getAESKeyFromPassword, which is here:

// Password derived AES 256 bits secret key
public static SecretKey getAESKeyFromPassword(char[] password, byte[] salt)
        throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeySpecException {

    SecretKeyFactory factory = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance("PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256");
    // iterationCount = 65536
    // keyLength = 256
    KeySpec spec = new PBEKeySpec(password, salt, 65536, 256);
    SecretKey secret = new SecretKeySpec(factory.generateSecret(spec).getEncoded(), "AES");
    return secret;

}

I want to carry out the same "investigation", as I have done with the Wikipedia page, SHA1, and CyberChef, but using SHA256 (replacing the values in the Java code, to match the salt, password, iterations, from the example).

This is where my confusion starts:

If I were to use CyberChef to work on the same values as above, but replace with SHA256:

PASSWORD plnlrtfpijpuhqylxbgqiiyipieyxvfsavzgxbbcfusqkozwpngsyejqlmjsytrmd UTF8

SALT A009C1A485912C6AE630D3E744240B04 HEX

Hashing function SHA256

Key Size 128

Iterations 1000

I would expect the derived key to be the same in CyberChef, as the https://mkyong.com/java/java-aes-encryption-and-decryption/ example.

It's not.

I cannot help but think there is a flaw in my understanding.

Can someone please provide a simple (worked-through) example of PBKDF2 with SHA256, so I can understand what is going on. If the derived key is not meant to be the same (as with the SHA1 example, please explain why).

Is the Java SecretKey:

SecretKey secret = new SecretKeySpec(factory.generateSecret(spec).getEncoded(), "AES");

The same as the derived key?

There seems to be a lack of easy-to-understand examples to follow.

Thanks

Miles.

Answer 1

Thank you all for your input, especially Topaco :)

I am going to answer my question, as I have spent some time working on a MCVE, and have managed to get the same SecretKey as cyberChef.

The secret key value is: 28869b5f31ae29236f164c5cb33e2e3bb46f483867a15f8e7208e1836070f64a

Here is the output from cyberChef:

Here is the Java code, and output from running it:

package crypto;

import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
import javax.crypto.SecretKeyFactory;
import javax.crypto.spec.GCMParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.PBEKeySpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.security.spec.InvalidKeySpecException;
import java.security.spec.KeySpec;
import java.util.Base64;

public class EncryptDecryptAesGcmPassword {

    private static final String ENCRYPT_ALGO = "AES/GCM/NoPadding";

    private static final int TAG_LENGTH_BIT = 128; // must be one of {128, 120,     112, 104, 96}
    private static final int IV_LENGTH_BYTE = 12;
    private static final int SALT_LENGTH_BYTE = 16;
    public static final int ITERATION_COUNT = 1000;
    public static final int KEY_LENGTH = 256;

    private static final Charset UTF_8 = StandardCharsets.UTF_8;

    // return a base64 encoded AES encrypted text
    public static String encrypt(byte[] salt, byte[] pText, String password) throws Exception {
        // GCM recommended 12 bytes iv?
        byte[] iv = getRandomNonce(IV_LENGTH_BYTE);

        // secret key from password
        SecretKey aesKeyFromPassword = getAESKeyFromPassword(password.toCharArray(), salt);

        Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(ENCRYPT_ALGO);

        // ASE-GCM needs GCMParameterSpec
        cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, aesKeyFromPassword, new GCMParameterSpec(TAG_LENGTH_BIT, iv));

        byte[] cipherText = cipher.doFinal(pText);

        // prefix IV and Salt to cipher text
        byte[] cipherTextWithIvSalt = ByteBuffer.allocate(iv.length + salt.length + cipherText.length)
            .put(iv)
            .put(salt)
            .put(cipherText)
            .array();

        // string representation, base64, send this string to other for decryption.
        return Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(cipherTextWithIvSalt);

    }

    // we need the same password, salt and iv to decrypt it
    private static String decrypt(String cText, String password) throws Exception {
        byte[] decode = Base64.getDecoder().decode(cText.getBytes(UTF_8));

        // get back the iv and salt from the cipher text
        ByteBuffer bb = ByteBuffer.wrap(decode);

        byte[] iv = new byte[IV_LENGTH_BYTE];
        bb.get(iv);

        byte[] salt = new byte[SALT_LENGTH_BYTE];
        bb.get(salt);

        byte[] cipherText = new byte[bb.remaining()];
        bb.get(cipherText);

        // get back the aes key from the same password and salt
        SecretKey aesKeyFromPassword = getAESKeyFromPassword(password.toCharArray(), salt);

        Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(ENCRYPT_ALGO);

        cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, aesKeyFromPassword, new GCMParameterSpec(TAG_LENGTH_BIT, iv));

        byte[] plainText = cipher.doFinal(cipherText);

        return new String(plainText, UTF_8);

    }


    public static byte hexToByte(String hexString) {
        int firstDigit = toDigit(hexString.charAt(0));
        int secondDigit = toDigit(hexString.charAt(1));
        return (byte) ((firstDigit << 4) + secondDigit);
    }

    public static byte[] decodeHexString(String hexString) {
        if (hexString.length() % 2 == 1) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                "Invalid hexadecimal String supplied.");
        }

        byte[] bytes = new byte[hexString.length() / 2];
        for (int i = 0; i < hexString.length(); i += 2) {
            bytes[i / 2] = hexToByte(hexString.substring(i, i + 2));
        }  
        return bytes;
    }

    private static int toDigit(char hexChar) {
        int digit = Character.digit(hexChar, 16);
        if (digit == -1) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                "Invalid Hexadecimal Character: "+ hexChar);
        }
        return digit;
    }

    // Random byte[] with length numBytes
    public static byte[] getRandomNonce(int numBytes) {
        byte[] nonce = new byte[numBytes];
        new SecureRandom().nextBytes(nonce);
        return nonce;
    }

    // Password derived AES 256 bits secret key
    public static SecretKey getAESKeyFromPassword(char[] password, byte[] salt)
        throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeySpecException {

        SecretKeyFactory factory =    SecretKeyFactory.getInstance("PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256");
        // iterationCount = 1000
        // keyLength = 256
        KeySpec spec = new PBEKeySpec(password, salt, ITERATION_COUNT,
            KEY_LENGTH);
        SecretKey secret = new SecretKeySpec(factory.generateSecret(spec).getEncoded(), "AES");

        String encodedKey = hex(secret.getEncoded());

        // print SecretKey as hex
        System.out.println("SecretKey: " + encodedKey);

        return secret;

    }

    // hex representation
    public static String hex(byte[] bytes) {
        StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
        for (byte b : bytes) {
            result.append(String.format("%02x", b));
        }
        return result.toString();
    }



    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String OUTPUT_FORMAT = "%-30s:%s";
        String PASSWORD = "plnlrtfpijpuhqylxbgqiiyipieyxvfsavzgxbbcfusqkozwpngsyejqlmjsytrmd";

        // plain text
        String pText = "AES-GSM Password-Bases encryption!";

        // convert hex string to byte[]
        byte[] salt = decodeHexString("A009C1A485912C6AE630D3E744240B04");


        String encryptedTextBase64 = EncryptDecryptAesGcmPassword.encrypt(salt, pText.getBytes(UTF_8), PASSWORD);

        System.out.println("\n------ AES GCM Password-based Encryption ------");
        System.out.println(String.format(OUTPUT_FORMAT, "Input (plain text)", pText));
        System.out.println(String.format(OUTPUT_FORMAT, "Encrypted (base64) ", encryptedTextBase64));

        System.out.println("\n------ AES GCM Password-based Decryption ------");
        System.out.println(String.format(OUTPUT_FORMAT, "Input (base64)", encryptedTextBase64));

        String decryptedText = EncryptDecryptAesGcmPassword.decrypt(encryptedTextBase64, PASSWORD);
        System.out.println(String.format(OUTPUT_FORMAT, "Decrypted (plain text)", decryptedText));
    }
}

Running this code, produces the following:

SecretKey: 28869b5f31ae29236f164c5cb33e2e3bb46f483867a15f8e7208e1836070f64a

------ AES GCM Password-based Encryption ------
Input (plain text)            :AES-GSM Password-Bases encryption!
Encrypted (base64)            :/PuTLBTKVWgJB2iMoAnBpIWRLGrmMNPnRCQLBABOkwNeY8BrrdtoRNVFqZ+xmUjvF2PET6Ne2+PAp34QLCUFjQodTMdmzaNAfzcLWOf4

------ AES GCM Password-based Decryption ------
Input (base64)               :/PuTLBTKVWgJB2iMoAnBpIWRLGrmMNPnRCQLBABOkwNeY8BrrdtoRNVFqZ+xmUjvF2PET6Ne2+PAp34QLCUFjQodTMdmzaNAfzcLWOf4
SecretKey: 28869b5f31ae29236f164c5cb33e2e3bb46f483867a15f8e7208e1836070f64a
Decrypted (plain text)        :AES-GSM Password-Bases encryption!

Thanks

Miles.