Getting javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException: Input length must be multiple of 16 when decrypting with padded cipher?

Question

Using tomcat, I have two web-applications i.e app1 and app2. I sent url from app1 in encrypted form (using below code) to app2 . Then at app2 I decrypted this encrypted url

Answer 1

I would suggest instead of working with Strings work with byte[] itself. I am guessing some bytes are modified when you convert it into a String. Following code works for me -

public static final String ENC_KEY = "abcdefghijklmnop";
public static final String DATA = "Hello World";

public static void test(){

    try {
        Cipher c = Cipher.getInstance("AES");

        SecretKeySpec secretKeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(ENC_KEY.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");

        c.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKeySpec);
        byte[] encBytes = c.doFinal(DATA.getBytes("UTF-8"));
        String encStr =  new String(encBytes, "UTF-8");
        System.out.println("Encrypted String: " + encStr);

        c.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKeySpec);
        String decStr = new String(c.doFinal(encBytes),"UTF-8");
        System.out.println("Decrypted String: " + decStr);

    } catch (Exception ex) {
        System.out.println("Error in encrypting data");
        ex.printStackTrace();
    }
}

but if you change it to -

public static void test(){

    try {
        Cipher c = Cipher.getInstance("AES");

        SecretKeySpec secretKeySpec = new SecretKeySpec(ENC_KEY.getBytes("UTF-8"), "AES");

        c.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, secretKeySpec);
        byte[] encBytes = c.doFinal(DATA.getBytes("UTF-8"));
        String encStr =  new String(encBytes, "UTF-8");
        System.out.println("Encrypted String: " + encStr);

        c.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretKeySpec);
        String decStr = new String(c.doFinal(encStr.getBytes("UTF-8")),"UTF-8");
        System.out.println("Decrypted String: " + decStr);

    } catch (Exception ex) {
        System.out.println("Error in encrypting data");
        ex.printStackTrace();
    }
}

You will get

javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException: Input length must be multiple of 16 when decrypting with padded cipher at com.sun.crypto.provider.CipherCore.doFinal(CipherCore.java:936) at com.sun.crypto.provider.CipherCore.doFinal(CipherCore.java:847) at com.sun.crypto.provider.AESCipher.engineDoFinal(AESCipher.java:446) at javax.crypto.Cipher.doFinal(Cipher.java:2164) at com.osfg.HelloWorld.test(HelloWorld.java:38) at com.osfg.HelloWorld.main(HelloWorld.java:22)

Notice

String decStr = new String(c.doFinal(encBytes),"UTF-8");
VRS
String decStr = new String(c.doFinal(encStr.getBytes("UTF-8")),"UTF-8");