Java™ Cryptography Architecture
Oracle Providers Documentation

for JavaTM Platform Standard Edition 7

Introduction
Import Limits on Cryptographic Algorithms
The SunPKCS11 Provider
The SUN Provider
The SunRsaSign Provider
The SunJSSE Provider
The SunJCE Provider
The SunJGSS Provider
The SunSASL Provider
The XMLDSig Provider
The SunPCSC Provider
The SunMSCAPI Provider
The SunEC Provider

Note: The Standard Names Documentation contains more information about the standard names used in this document.

Introduction

The Java platform defines a set of APIs spanning major security areas, including cryptography, public key infrastructure, authentication, secure communication, and access control. These APIs allow developers to easily integrate security mechanisms into their application code. The Java Cryptography Architecture (JCA) and its Provider Architecture is a core concept of the Java Development Kit (JDK). It is assumed readers have a solid understanding of this architecture.

This document describes the technical details of the providers shipped as part of Oracle's Java Environment.

Reminder: Cryptographic implementations in the JDK are distributed through several different providers ("Sun", "SunJSSE", "SunJCE", "SunRsaSign") for both historical reasons and by the types of services provided. General purpose applications SHOULD NOT request cryptographic services from specific providers. That is: 
    getInstance("...", "SunJCE");  // not recommended
        vs.
    getInstance("...");            // recommended
Otherwise, applications are tied to specific providers that may not be available on other Java implementations. They also might not be able to take advantage of available optimized providers (for example, hardware accelerators via PKCS11 or native OS implementations such as Microsoft's MSCAPI) that have a higher preference order than the specific requested provider.

Import Limits on Cryptographic Algorithms

Due to import regulations in some countries, the Oracle implementation provides a default cryptographic jurisdiction policy file that limits the strength of cryptographic algorithms. Here are the maximum key sizes allowed by this "strong" version of the jurisdiction policy files:

Algorithm Maximum Keysize
DES 64
DESede *
RC2 128
RC4 128
RC5 128
RSA *
all others 128

If stronger algorithms are needed (for example, AES with 256-bit keys), the JCE Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files must be obtained and installed in the JDK/JRE.

It is the user's responsibility to verify that this action is permissible under local regulations.

The SunPKCS11 Provider

The Cryptographic Token Interface Standard ( PKCS#11) provides native programming interfaces to cryptographic mechanisms, such as hardware cryptographic accelerators and Smart Cards. When properly configured, the SunPKCS11 provider enables applications to use the standard JCA/JCE APIs to access native PKCS#11 libraries. The SunPKCS11 provider itself does not contain cryptographic functionality, it is simply a conduit between the Java environment and the native PKCS11 providers. The Java PKCS#11 Reference Guide has a much more detailed treatment of this provider.

The SUN Provider

JDK 1.1 introduced the Provider architecture. The first JDK provider was named SUN, and contained two types of cryptographic services (MessageDigests and Signatures). In later releases, other mechanisms were added (SecureRandom number generators, KeyPairGenerators, KeyFactorys, and so on.).

United States export regulations in effect at the time placed significant restrictions on the type of cryptographic functionality that could be made available internationally in the JDK. For this reason, the SUN provider has historically contained cryptographic engines that did not directly encrypt or decrypt data.

The following algorithms are available in the SUN provider:

Engine Algorithm Names
AlgorithmParameterGenerator DSA
AlgorithmParameters DSA
CertificateFactory X.509
CertPathBuilder PKIX
CertPathValidator PKIX
CertStore Collection
LDAP
Configuration JavaLoginConfig
KeyFactory DSA
KeyPairGenerator DSA
KeyStore JKS
MessageDigest MD2
MD5
SHA-1
SHA-256
SHA-384
SHA-512
Policy JavaPolicy
SecureRandom SHA1PRNG
Signature NONEwithDSA
SHA1withDSA

Keysize Restrictions

The SUN provider uses the following default keysizes (in bits) and enforces the following restrictions:

KeyPairGenerator

Alg. Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
DSA 1024 Keysize must be a multiple of 64, ranging from 512 to 1024 (inclusive).

AlgorithmParameterGenerator

Alg. Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
DSA 1024 Keysize must be a multiple of 64, ranging from 512 to 1024 (inclusive).

CertificateFactory/CertPathBuilder/ CertPathValidator/CertStore Implementations

Additional details on the SUN provider implementations for CertificateFactory, CertPathBuilder, CertPathValidator and CertStore are documented in Appendix B of the PKI Programmer's Guide.

The SunRsaSign Provider

The SunRsaSign provider was introduced in JDK 1.3 as an enhanced replacement for the RSA signatures in the SunJSSE provider.

The following algorithms are available in the SunRsaSign provider:

Engine Algorithm Names
KeyFactory RSA
KeyPairGenerator RSA
Signature MD2withRSA
MD5withRSA
SHA1withRSA
SHA256withRSA
SHA384withRSA
SHA512withRSA

Keysize Restrictions

The SunRsaSign provider uses the following default keysize (in bits) and enforces the following restriction:

KeyPairGenerator

Alg. Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
RSA 1024 Keysize must range between 512 and 65536 bits, the latter of which is unnecessarily large.

The SunJSSE Provider

The Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE) was originally released as a separate "Optional Package" (also briefly known as a "Standard Extension"), and was available for JDK 1.2.n and 1.3.n. The SunJSSE provider was introduced as part of this release.

In earlier JDK releases, there were no RSA signature providers available in the JDK, therefore SunJSSE had to provide its own RSA implementation in order to use commonly available RSA-based certificates. JDK 5 introduced the SunRsaSign provider, which provides all the functionality (and more) of the SunJSSE provider. Applications targeted at JDK 5.0 and later should request instances of the SunRsaSign provider instead. For backward compatibility, the RSA algorithms are still available through this provider, but are actually implemented in the SunRsaSign provider.

Algorithms

The following algorithms are available in the SunJSSE provider:

Engine Algorithm Name(s)
KeyFactory
RSA
KeyManagerFactory
SunX509: A factory for X509ExtendedKeyManager instances that manage X.509 certificate-based key pairs for local side authentication according to the rules defined by the IETF PKIX working group in RFC 3280 or its successor. This KeyManagerFactory supports initialization using a Keystore object, but does not currently support initialization using the class javax.net.ssl.ManagerFactoryParameters.

PKIX: A factory for X509ExtendedKeyManager instances that manage X.509 certificate-based key pairs for local side authentication according to the rules defined by the IETF PKIX working group in RFC 3280 or its successor. This KeyManagerFactory currently supports initialization using a KeyStore object or javax.net.ssl.KeyStoreBuilderParameters.
KeyPairGenerator
RSA
KeyStore
PKCS12
Signature
MD2withRSA
MD5withRSA
SHA1withRSA
SSLContext
SSLv3
TLSv1
TLSv1.1
TLSv1.2
TrustManagerFactory
SunX509: A factory for X509ExtendedTrustManager instances that validate certificate chains according to the rules defined by the IETF PKIX working group in RFC 3280 or its successor. This TrustManagerFactory supports initialization using a Keystore object, but does not currently support initialization using the class javax.net.ssl.ManagerFactoryParameters.

PKIX: A factory for X509ExtendedTrustManager instances that validate certificate chains according to the rules defined by the IETF PKIX working group in RFC 3280 or its successor. This TrustManagerFactory currently supports initialization using a KeyStore object or javax.net.ssl.CertPathTrustManagerParameters.

Protocols

The SunJSSE supports the following protocol parameters:

Protocol Enabled by Default for Client Enabled by Default for Server
SSLv3 Yes Yes
TLSv1 Yes Yes
TLSv1.1 No Yes
TLSv1.2 No Yes
SSLv2Hello No No

Although SunJSSE in the Java SE 7 release supports TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2, neither version is enabled by default for client connections. Some servers do not implement forward compatibility correctly and refuse to talk to TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2 clients. For interoperability, SunJSSE does not enable TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2 by default for client connections.

Server connections have no such interoperability problem. TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 are enabled by default for server connections.

The SSLv3, TLSv1, and TLSv1.1 protocols allow you to send SSLv3, TLSv1, and TLSv1.1 hellos encapsulated in an SSLv2 format hello. In the Java SE 7 release, this support is still present but is disabled by default.

Cipher Suites

SunJSSE supports a large number of cipher suites. The two tables that follow show the cipher suites supported by SunJSSE in preference order and the release in which they were introduced.

The first table lists the cipher suites that are enable by default. The second table shows cipher suites that are supported by SunJSSE but disabled by default.

Default Enabled Cipher Suites
Cipher Suite J2SE v1.4 J2SE v1.4.1, v1.4.2 J2SE 5.0 Java SE 6 Java SE 7
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384         X1
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384         X1
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384         X1
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384         X1
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X1
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA       X X
SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA X X X X X
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA       X X
SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA X X X X X
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA       X X
SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA   X X X X
SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA X X X X X
SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 X X X X X
TLS_EMPTY_RENEGOTIATION_INFO_SCSV2   1.4.2u28+ u26+ u22+ X

1 Cipher suites with SHA384 and SHA256 are available only for TLS 1.2 or later.

2 TLS_EMPTY_RENEGOTIATION_INFO_SCSV is a new pseudo-cipher suite to support RFC 5746. See the Transport Layer Security (TLS) Renegotiation Issue section of the JSEE Reference Guide for more information.

Default Disabled Cipher Suites
Cipher Suite J2SE v1.4 J2SE v1.4.1, v1.4.2 J2SE 5.0 Java SE 6 Java SE 7
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256         X
TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256         X
TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA       X X
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA   X X X X
TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_RC4_128_SHA       X X
SSL_DH_anon_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 X X X X X
TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA       X X
SSL_DH_anon_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA X X X X X
TLS_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA256         X
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_NULL_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA       X X
SSL_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA X X X X X
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_NULL_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA       X X
TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_NULL_SHA       X X
SSL_RSA_WITH_NULL_MD5 X X X X X
SSL_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA X X X X X1
SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA   X X X X1
SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA X X X X X1
SSL_DH_anon_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA X X X X X1
SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5 X X X X X2
SSL_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5 X X X X X2
SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA   X X X X2
SSL_DHE_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA   X X X X2
SSL_DHE_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA X X X X X2
SSL_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA X X X X X2
TLS_KRB5_WITH_RC4_128_SHA     X X X
TLS_KRB5_WITH_RC4_128_MD5     X X X
TLS_KRB5_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA     X X X
TLS_KRB5_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_MD5     X X X
TLS_KRB5_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA     X X X1
TLS_KRB5_WITH_DES_CBC_MD5     X X X1
TLS_KRB5_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_SHA     X X X2
TLS_KRB5_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5     X X X2
TLS_KRB5_EXPORT_WITH_DES_CBC_40_SHA     X X X2
TLS_KRB5_EXPORT_WITH_DES_CBC_40_MD5     X X X2

1 RFC 5246 TLS 1.2 forbids the use of these suites. These can be used in the SSLv3/TLS1.0/TLS1.1 protocols, but cannot be used in TLS 1.2 and later.

2 RFC 4346 TLS 1.1 forbids the use of these suites. These can be used in the SSLv3/TLS1.0 protocols, but cannot be used in TLS 1.1 and later.

Cipher suites that use AES_256 require installation of the JCE Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files. See Import Limits on Cryptographic Algorithms.

Cipher suites that use Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECDSA, ECDH, ECDHE, ECDH_anon) require a JCE cryptographic provider that meets the following requirements:

If these requirements are not met, EC cipher suites may not be negotiated correctly.

Tighter Checking of EncryptedPreMasterSecret Version Numbers

Prior to the Java SE 7 release, the SSL/TLS implementation did not check the version number in PreMasterSecret, and the SSL/TLS client did not send the correct version number by default. Unless the system property com.sun.net.ssl.rsaPreMasterSecretFix is set to true, the TLS client sends the active negotiated version, but not the expected maximum version supported by the client.

For compatibility, this behavior is preserved for SSL version 3.0 and TLS version 1.0. However, for TLS version 1.1 or later, the implementation tightens checking the PreMasterSecret version numbers as required by RFC 5246. Clients always send the correct version number, and servers check the version number strictly. The system property, com.sun.net.ssl.rsaPreMasterSecretFix, is not used in TLS 1.1 or later.

The SunJCE Provider

As described briefly in The SUN Provider, US export regulations at the time restricted the type of cryptographic functionality that could be made available in the JDK. A separate API and reference implementation was developed that allowed applications to encrypt/decrypt data. The Java Cryptographic Extension (JCE) was released as a separate "Optional Package" (also briefly known as a "Standard Extension"), and was available for JDK 1.2.x and 1.3.x. During the development of JDK 1.4, regulations were relaxed enough that JCE (and SunJSSE) could be bundled as part of the JDK.

The following algorithms are available in the SunJCE provider:

Engine Algorithm Names
AlgorithmParameterGenerator DiffieHellman
AlgorithmParameters AES
Blowfish
DES
DESede
DiffieHellman
OAEP
PBEWithMD5AndDES
PBEWithMD5AndTripleDES
PBEWithSHA1AndDESede
PBEWithSHA1AndRC2_40
RC2
Cipher See the Cipher table.
KeyAgreement DiffieHellman
KeyFactory DiffieHellman
KeyGenerator AES
ARCFOUR
Blowfish
DES
DESede
HmacMD5
HmacSHA1
HmacSHA256
HmacSHA384
HmacSHA512
RC2
KeyPairGenerator DiffieHellman
KeyStore JCEKS
Mac HmacMD5
HmacSHA1
HmacSHA256
HmacSHA384
HmacSHA512
SecretKeyFactory DES
DESede
PBEWithMD5AndDES
PBEWithMD5AndTripleDES
PBEWithSHA1AndDESede
PBEWithSHA1AndRC2_40
PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1

The following table lists cipher algorithms available in the SunJCE provider.

Algorithm Name Modes Paddings
AES ECB, CBC, PCBC, CTR, CTS, CFB, CFB8..CFB128, OFB, OFB8..OFB128 NOPADDING, PKCS5PADDING, ISO10126PADDING
AESWrap ECB NOPADDING
ARCFOUR ECB NOPADDING
Blowfish, DES, DESede, RC2 ECB, CBC, PCBC, CTR, CTS, CFB, CFB8..CFB64, OFB, OFB8..OFB64 NOPADDING, PKCS5PADDING, ISO10126PADDING
DESedeWrap CBC NOPADDING
PBEWithMD5AndDES, PBEWithMD5AndTripleDES1 PBEWithSHA1AndDESede, PBEWithSHA1AndRC2_40 CBC PKCS5Padding
RSA ECB NOPADDING, PKCS1PADDING, OAEPWITHMD5ANDMGF1PADDING, OAEPWITHSHA1ANDMGF1PADDING, OAEPWITHSHA-1ANDMGF1PADDING, OAEPWITHSHA-256ANDMGF1PADDING, OAEPWITHSHA-384ANDMGF1PADDING, OAEPWITHSHA-512ANDMGF1PADDING

1 PBEWithMD5AndTripleDES is a proprietary algorithm that has not been standardized.

Keysize Restrictions

The SunJCE provider uses the following default keysizes (in bits) and enforces the following restrictions:

KeyGenerator

Algorithm Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
AES 128 Keysize must be equal to 128, 192, or 256.
ARCFOUR (RC4) 128 Keysize must range between 40 and 1024 (inclusive).
Blowfish 128 Keysize must be a multiple of 8, ranging from 32 to 448 (inclusive).
DES 56 Keysize must be equal to 56.
DESede (Triple DES) 168 Keysize must be equal to 112 or 168.

A keysize of 112 will generate a Triple DES key with 2 intermediate keys, and a keysize of 168 will generate a Triple DES key with 3 intermediate keys.

Due to the "Meet-In-The-Middle" problem, even though 112 or 168 bits of key material are used, the effective keysize is 80 or 112 bits respectively.
HmacMD5 512 No keysize restriction.
HmacSHA1 512 No keysize restriction.
HmacSHA256 256 No keysize restriction.
HmacSHA384 384 No keysize restriction.
HmacSHA512 512 No keysize restriction.
RC2 128 Keysize must range between 40 and 1024 (inclusive).

NOTE: The various Password-Based Encryption (PBE) algorithms use various algorithms to generate key data, and ultimately depends on the targeted Cipher algorithm. For example, "PBEWithMD5AndDES" will always generate 56-bit keys.

KeyPairGenerator

Algorithm Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
Diffie-Hellman (DH) 1024 Keysize must be a multiple of 64, ranging from 512 to 1024 (inclusive).

AlgorithmParameterGenerator

Alg. Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
Diffie-Hellman (DH) 1024 Keysize must be a multiple of 64, ranging from 512 to 1024 (inclusive).
DSA 1024 Keysize must be a multiple of 64, ranging from 512 to 1024 (inclusive).

The SunJGSS Provider

The following algorithms are available in the SunJGSS provider:

OID Name
1.2.840.113554.1.2.2 Kerberos v5
1.3.6.1.5.5.2 SPNEGO

The SunSASL Provider

The following algorithms are available in the SunSASL provider:

Engine Algorithm Names
SaslClient CRAM-MD5
DIGEST-MD5
EXTERNAL
GSSAPI
PLAIN
SaslServer CRAM-MD5
DIGEST-MD5
GSSAPI

The XMLDSig Provider

The following algorithms are available in the XMLDSig provider:

Engine Algorithm Names
KeyInfoFactory DOM
TransformService http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xml-c14n-20010315 - (CanonicalizationMethod.INCLUSIVE)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xml-c14n-20010315#WithComments - (CanonicalizationMethod.INCLUSIVE_WITH_COMMENTS)
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n# - (CanonicalizationMethod.EXCLUSIVE)
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#WithComments - (CanonicalizationMethod.EXCLUSIVE_WITH_COMMENTS)
http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#base64 - (Transform.BASE64)
http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature - (Transform.ENVELOPED)
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116 - (Transform.XPATH)
http://www.w3.org/2002/06/xmldsig-filter2 - (Transform.XPATH2)
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xslt-19991116 - (Transform.XSLT)
XMLSignatureFactory DOM

The SunPCSC Provider

The SunPCSC provider enables applications to use the Java Smart Card I/O API to interact with the PC/SC Smart Card stack of the underlying operating system. On some operating systems, it may be necessary to enable and configure the PC/SC stack before it is usable. Consult your operating system documentation for details.

On Solaris and Linux platforms, SunPCSC accesses the PC/SC stack via the libpcsclite.so library. It looks for this library in the directories /usr/$LIBISA and /usr/local/$LIBISA, where $LIBISA is expanded to lib on 32-bit platforms, lib/64 on 64-bit Solaris platforms, and lib64 on 64-bit Linux platforms. The system property sun.security.smartcardio.library may also be set to the full filename of an alternate libpcsclite.so implementation. On Windows platforms, SunPCSC always calls into winscard.dll and no Java-level configuration is necessary or possible.

If PC/SC is available on the host platform, the SunPCSC implementation can be obtained via TerminalFactory.getDefault() and TerminalFactory.getInstance("PC/SC"). If PC/SC is not available or not correctly configured, a getInstance() call will fail with a NoSuchAlgorithmException and getDefault() will return a JRE built-in implementation that does not support any terminals.

The following algorithms are available in the SunPCSC provider:

Engine Algorithm Names
TerminalFactory PC/SC

The SunMSCAPI Provider

The SunMSCAPI provider enables applications to use the standard JCA/JCE APIs to access the native cryptographic libraries, certificates stores and key containers on the Microsoft Windows platform. The SunMSCAPI provider itself does not contain cryptographic functionality, it is simply a conduit between the Java environment and the native cryptographic services on Windows.

The following algorithms are available in the SunMSCAPI provider:

Engine Algorithm Names
Cipher RSA RSA/ECB/PKCS1Padding only
KeyPairGenerator RSA
KeyStore Windows-MY

The keystore type that identifies the native Microsoft Windows MY keystore. It contains the user's personal certificates and associated private keys.

Windows-ROOT

The keystore type that identifies the native Microsoft Windows ROOT keystore. It contains the certificates of Root certificate authorities and other self-signed trusted certificates.
SecureRandom Windows-PRNG

The name of the native pseudo-random number generation (PRNG) algorithm.
Signature MD2withRSA
MD5withRSA
SHA1withRSA

Keysize Restrictions

The SunMSCAPI provider uses the following default keysizes (in bits) and enforce the following restrictions:

KeyGenerator

Alg. Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
RSA 1024 Keysize ranges from 384 bits to 16,384 bits (depending on the underlying Microsoft Windows cryptographic service provider).

The SunEC Provider

The SunEC provider implements Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC). ECC is emerging as an attractive public-key cryptosystem for mobile/wireless and other environments. Compared to traditional cryptosystems like RSA, ECC offers equivalent security with smaller key sizes, which results in faster computations, lower power consumption, as well as memory and bandwidth savings.

Applications can now use the standard JCA/JCE APIs to access ECC functionality without the dependency on external ECC libraries(via SunPKCS11), as was the case in the JDK 6 release.

The following algorithms are available in the SunEC provider:

Engine Algorithm Name(s)
AlgorithmParameters EC
KeyAgreement ECDH
KeyFactory EC
KeyPairGenerator EC
Signature NONEwithECDSA
SHA1withECDSA
SHA256withECDSA
SHA384withECDSA
SHA512withECDSA

Keysize Restrictions

The SunEC provider uses the following default keysizes (in bits) and enforces the following restrictions:

KeyPairGenerator

Alg. Name Default Keysize Restrictions/Comments
EC 256 Keysize must range from 112 to 571 (inclusive).
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