Encryption and security

The data types Crypto, and CryptoX are used to encrypt passwords and other types of confidential information. The Java™ Cryptography Extension (JCE) is used to perform encryption.

JCE can use variables to transform the input data into encrypted data. By default, the DESede encryption algorithm and its defaults are used for the other values. Crypto and CryptoX use the DESede encryption algorithm.

The following table describes the data types Crypto and CryptoX.

Table 1. Crypto and CryptoX data types
Data type	Data stored	Algorithm
CryptoX	User passwords	One-way encryption Stores password in encrypted format (cannot be decrypted or displayed) Internally, the encrypted version is used
Crypto	Information that you want to decrypt or display	Two-way encryption Information can be decrypted and displayed to users

You can configure the encryption settings in the maximo.properties file. You can configure the encryption data types to be consistent with industry guidelines and government guidelines. You can also configure encryption to make your system more secure: key, mode, padding, and spec. The following table describes the encryption settings.

Table 2. Encryption settings
Encryption property	Settings for JCE and DESede
mxe.security.crypto.key mxe.security.cryptox.key	Length must be a multiple of 24
mxe.security.crypto.mode mxe.security.cryptox.mode	CBC - Cipher Block Chaining Mode CFB - Cipher Feedback Mode ECB - Electronic Codebook Mode OFB - Output Feedback Mode PCBC - Propagating Cipher Block Chaining
mxe.security.crypto.padding mxe.security.cryptox.padding	NoPadding PKCS5Padding
mxe.security.crypto.spec mxe.security.cryptox.spec	Length must be a multiple of 8