Configure Jasypt Encryptors using my own SecretKey, instead of setting String password using the 'setPassword' method of the PBEString encryptors?

Question

I'm trying to configure Jasypt StandardPBEStringEncryptor using the following code.

StandardPBEStringEncryptor strongEncryptor = new StandardPBEStringEncryptor();
strongEncryptor.setAlgorithm(ALGORITHM);
strongEncryptor.setPassword(PASSWORD);

And then call the encrypt() and decrypt() methods of the 'strongEncryptor' to perform the encryption and decryption operations.

Is it possible or is there a way I can configure the Jasypt encryptor using my own SecretKey instead of setting a password?

Like in Java Cipher, we do...

Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/ECB/PKCS5Padding");
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, MY_SECRET_KEY);

I see that Jasypt internally uses the String password to create the SecretKey and initiate the Java Cipher. Is it possible to provide my Key here?

Answer 1

PBE stands for Password Based Encryption.

That means instead of requiring a SecretKey it needs a passphrase which will then be used to generate the key by hashing it many times.

So manually settings the SecretKey for a PBE-encryption would invalidate it's purpose. For exactly that reason StandardPBEStringEncryptor does not allow this. (see it's doc for more information)

If you want to use your own SecretKey, simply use a standard encryption function.