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https://github.com/patrickfav/armadillo

A shared preference implementation for confidential data in Android. Per default uses AES-GCM, BCrypt and HKDF as cryptographic primitives. Uses the concept of device fingerprinting combined with optional user provided passwords and strong password hashes.
https://github.com/patrickfav/armadillo

aes-encryption aes-gcm android authenticated-encryption bcrypt crypto cryptography hkdf security sharedpreferences

Last synced: 6 months ago
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A shared preference implementation for confidential data in Android. Per default uses AES-GCM, BCrypt and HKDF as cryptographic primitives. Uses the concept of device fingerprinting combined with optional user provided passwords and strong password hashes.

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README 

          
# Armadillo - Encrypted Shared Preference



Armadillo Logo



A shared preference implementation for secret data providing confidentiality,

integrity and authenticity. Per default uses AES-GCM, BCrypt and HKDF as cryptographic primitives.



[![Maven Central](https://img.shields.io/maven-central/v/at.favre.lib/armadillo)](https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/at.favre.lib/armadillo)

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.com/patrickfav/armadillo.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.com/patrickfav/armadillo)

[![Javadocs](https://www.javadoc.io/badge/at.favre.lib/armadillo.svg)](https://www.javadoc.io/doc/at.favre.lib/armadillo)

[![Coverage Status](https://coveralls.io/repos/github/patrickfav/armadillo/badge.svg?branch=master)](https://coveralls.io/github/patrickfav/armadillo?branch=master)

[![Maintainability](https://api.codeclimate.com/v1/badges/c3ac3cdd849ba47fd90a/maintainability)](https://codeclimate.com/github/patrickfav/armadillo/maintainability)



**Important Notice:** If you migrate to v0.6.0 and use a user password and

default key stretching function migration is needed due to a security issue.

See [migration guide in the changelog for v0.6.0](https://github.com/patrickfav/armadillo/releases)



## Features



* **No-Nonse State-of-the-Art Crypto**: Authenticated Encryption with [AES](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard)-[GCM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois/Counter_Mode), key derivation functions [Bcrypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcrypt) and [HKDF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKDF)

* **Flexible**: Tons of nobs and switches while having sane defaults

* **Modular**: use your own implementation of symmetric cipher, key stretching, data obfuscation, etc.

* **Lightweight**: No massive dependencies required like [BouncyCastle](https://www.bouncycastle.org/) or [Facebook Conceal](https://github.com/facebook/conceal)



### Security Summary



* Using it **with a user provided password** (and strong password hash, like the default BCrypt): **your data is strongly encrypted**

* Using it without a user provided password: **your data is obfuscated and cannot be easily altered or read by an attacker with access to the device**

* By using fingerprinting, it is **not easily possible to just copy data over to another device** and use it there

* Encryption is **non-deterministic**, which means even if you encrypt the same data it **appears to be different**

* All encrypted data is **protected against modification by an outside attacker**, so long as the encryption itself is not circumvented

* The **[Android Keystore System](https://developer.android.com/training/articles/keystore.html) is not used**, since it proved to be unreliable and hard to handle in production due to device fragmentation and poor driver support (read more [below](https://github.com/patrickfav/armadillo#design-choices)). This implementation is a good fallback solution for a system that uses the aforementioned.



## Quick Start



Add the following to your dependencies ([add jcenter to your repositories](https://developer.android.com/studio/build/index.html#top-level) if you haven't)



```groovy

compile 'at.favre.lib:armadillo:x.y.z'

```



A very minimal example



```java

SharedPreferences preferences = Armadillo.create(context, "myPrefs")

    .encryptionFingerprint(context)

    .build();



preferences.edit().putString("key1", "stringValue").commit();

String s = preferences.getString("key1", null);

```



### Advanced Example



The following example shows some of the configurations available to the developer:



```java

String userId = ...

SharedPreferences preferences = Armadillo.create(context, "myCustomPreferences")

        .password("mySuperSecretPassword".toCharArray()) //use user provided password

        .securityProvider(Security.getProvider("BC")) //use bouncy-castle security provider

        .keyStretchingFunction(new PBKDF2KeyStretcher()) //use PBKDF2 as user password kdf

        .contentKeyDigest(Bytes.from(getAndroidId(context)).array()) //use custom content key digest salt

        .secureRandom(new SecureRandom()) //provide your own secure random for salt/iv generation

        .encryptionFingerprint(context, userId.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8)) //add the user id to fingerprint

        .supportVerifyPassword(true) //enables optional password validation support `.isValidPassword()`

        .enableKitKatSupport(true) //enable optional kitkat support

        .enableDerivedPasswordCache(true) //enable caching for derived password making consecutive getters faster

        .build();

```



A xml file named like `f1a4e61ffb59c6e6a3d6ceae9a20cb5726aade06.xml` will

be created with the resulting data looking something like that after the

first put operation:



```xml



    

    riIPjrL2WRfoh8QJXu7fWk4GGeAKlQoJl9ofABHZKlc=

    

    AAAAABD/8an1zfovjJB/2MFOT9ncAAAAJaf+Z9xgzwXzp1BqTsVMnRZxR/HfRcO8lEhyKpL17QmZ5amwAYQ=



```



### KitKat Support



Unfortunately [Android SDK 19 (KITKAT)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_KitKat) does not fully support AES GCM mode.

Therefore a backwards compatible implementation of AES using [CBC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_mode_of_operation#Cipher_Block_Chaining_(CBC))

with [Encrypt-then-MAC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticated_encryption#Encrypt-then-MAC_(EtM))

can be used to support this library on older devices. This should provide

the same security strength as the GCM version, however the support must

be enabled manually:



```java

SharedPreferences preferences = Armadillo.create(context, "myCustomPreferences")

        .enableKitKatSupport(true)

        ...

        .build();

```



In this mode, if on a KitKat device the backwards-compatible implementation is

used, the default AES-GCM version otherwise. Upgrading to a newer OS version

the content should still be decryptable, while newer content will then be

encrypted with the AES-GCM version.



## Description



### Design Choices



* **AES + GCM block mode:** To make sure that the data is not only kept

confidential, but it's integrity also preserved, the authenticated encryption

[AES+GCM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois/Counter_Mode) is used. GCM

can be implemented efficiently and fast and is the usually alternative to

[encrypt then mac](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticated_encryption#Encrypt-then-MAC_(EtM))

with AES+CBC and HMAC. The authentication tag is appended to the message and

is 16 byte long in this implementation. A downside of GCM is the requirement

to [never reuse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois/Counter_Mode#Security)

 a [IV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initialization_vector) with the same key,

 which is avoided in this lib.

* **Every put operation creates a different cipher text:** Every put operation

generates new salts, iv so the the resulting cipher text will be unrecognizably

different even with the same underlying data. This makes it harder to check if

the data actually has changed.

* **KDFs with Key Stretching features for user passwords:** Add brute-force

protection to possibly weak user provided passwords (e.g. BCrypt).

* **Minimum SDK 19 (Android 4.4):** A way to increase security is to cap older

implementation. SDK 19 seems to be a good compromise where most of the older

[security hack fixes](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2013/08/some-securerandom-thoughts.html)

 are not necessary anymore, but still targeting most devices.

* **Use of [JCA as Provider](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36983155) for cryptographic primitives:**

Various security frameworks exists in Java: [BouncyCastle](https://www.bouncycastle.org/),

[Conscrypt](https://github.com/google/conscrypt), [Facebook Conceal](https://github.com/facebook/conceal).

The problem is that these libraries are usually huge and require manual

updates to have all the latest security fixes.

This library however depends on the default JCA provider (although the developer may choose a

different one). This puts trust in the device and it's implementation, while

expecting frequent security patches. Usually the default provider since KitKat is

[`AndroidOpenSSL`]() provider which is fast (probably hardware accelerated for e.g. AES) and

heavily used by e.g. TLS implementation.

* **[Android Keystore System](https://developer.android.com/training/articles/keystore.html) is not used:**

  In my humble opinion, the Android Keystore is the best possible way to secure

  data on an Android device. Unfortunately, due to the massive fragmentation

  in the ecosystem properly handling and using the Android Keystore System

  is not easy and has [some major drawbacks](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36983155).

  Due to working in a security relevant field I have a lot of experience with

  this technology, therefore the decision was made to not support it _for this

  implementation_ i.e. to keep it simple.

* **Use of data obfuscation**: To disguise the actual data format and appear

as a pseudo random byte array, obfuscation is used. This deliberately uses

non standard ways to make it a bit harder to reverse engineer.



### User provided Passwords



A high entropy value not known to any system but the user is a good and strong

base for a cryptographic key. Unfortunately user-based passwords are often

weak (low-entropy). To mitigate that fact and help preventing easy brute-forcing

[key derivation functions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_derivation_function)

with [key stretching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_stretching)

properties are used. These functions calculate pseudo-random data from it's

source material which requires mandatory work.



The following implementations are available:



* [BCrypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcrypt): based on blowfish, has a variable cpu cost parameter and a fixed memory cost parameter (_default_)

* [PBKDF2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2): applies a pseudorandom function, such as hash-based message authentication code (HMAC), to the input password or passphrase along with a salt value and repeats the process many times to produce a derived key; no memory hardness



It is possible to provide any KDF implementation to the storage with providing

a custom `KeyStretchingFunction` implementation.



Note, if you use key stretching put/get operations will get very slow (depeding

on the work factor of course), so consider accessing the store in a background

thread.



### Encryption Fingerprint



This store bases part of it's security on so called fingerprinting. That

basically means, during runtime entropy from e.g. the device, system or other

parts are used to create a cryptographic key with which the data is encrypted.

It basically is encryption with a semi-secret key.



This has the following benefits:



* Binding the data to the executing runtime (ie. making it harder to lift the data and trying to read it in a different environment)

* Strongly obfuscating the data bordering actual encryption when the used fingerprint is infeasible to guess

* Be able to scope the data to a specific environment (e.g. when using the Android OS image build number, every update invalidates the data)



This store has a default implementation of `EncryptionFingerprint` which

can only use generic data. In detail the following properties are incorporated:



* Fingerprint of the [APK signature](https://source.android.com/security/apksigning/)

* [Android ID](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings.Secure.html#ANDROID_ID) : a 64-bit number (expressed as a hexadecimal string) byte random value; on SDK 26 and higher, unique to each combination of app-signing key, user, and device - on SDK 25 lower only unique to user and device

* [Application package name](https://developer.android.com/studio/build/application-id.html), [brand](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Build.html#BRAND), [model](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Build.html#MODEL) and name of the device

* 32 byte hardcoded static random value



#### Enhancing the Strength of the Encryption Fingerprint



The security of this mechanism increases considerably if the user adds it's

own data. Here are some suggestions:



* Random values hardcoded, locally generated or provided by a remote service

* Unique user-id (if the application has the concept of login)

* Device Serial (requires dangerous permission SDK > 25)

* Sim-ID/ICCID (if changing the sim should/can invalidate the data)

* Android OS image build fingerprint (if you want to invalidate the data after OS update)



### Key Derivation Process



The cryptographic key used to encrypt the data is composed of the following

parts:



![screenshot key derivation](doc/key_derivation.png)



* User password (optional): provided by the caller and stretched with e.g. Bcrypt

* Encryption Fingerprint (see section above)

* Entry Key: the hashed version of the key passed by the caller; this will bind the data to that specific entry key

* Entry Salt: a random 16 byte value unique to that specific entry that will be created on every put operation (will also be used for the key stretching function)

* Storage Salt: a random 32 byte value unique to that specific storage, created on first creation of the storage



The concatenated key material will be derived and stretched to the desired length

with [HKDF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKDF) derivation function.



### Persistence Profile



#### Key



The key is hashed with [HKDF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKDF) (which uses

Hmac with Sha512 internally) expanded to a 20 byte hash which will be encoded with

[base16 (hex)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal). The key generation

is salted by the encryption fingerprint, so different shared preferences will

generate different hashes for the same keys.



#### Content



The diagram below illustrates the used data format. To disguise the format

a little bit it will be obfuscated by a simple xor cipher.



![screenshot gallery](doc/persistence_profile.png)



The resulting data will be encoded with [base64](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64) and looks like this in the shared preferences xml:



```xml



    hwbchXlqDAQcig6q3UWxdbOb2wouDGGwjUGNIzREiy0=

    AAAAABAAajtOaVCq5yqu1TPxgLu2AAAAqUTxgPcAM6lyNTGgy7ZAoCjqcCdtxT6T



```



## Digital Signatures



### Signed Commits



All tags and commits by me are signed with git with my private key:



    GPG key ID: 4FDF85343912A3AB

    Fingerprint: 2FB392FB05158589B767960C4FDF85343912A3AB



## Build



Assemble the lib with the following command



    ./gradlew :armadillo:assemble



The `.aar` files can then be found in `/armadillo/build/outputs/aar` folder



## Libraries & Credits



* [BCrypt](https://github.com/patrickfav/bcrypt)

* [HKDF Standalone](https://github.com/patrickfav/hkdf)

* [Bytes](https://github.com/patrickfav/bytes-java)

* [Awesome logo made by @iqbalhood](https://github.com/iqbalhood)



## Similar Projects:



* [Google's Android Jetpack EncryptedSharedPreferences using Android Keystore System](https://developer.android.com/topic/security/data)

* [secure-preferences using AES-CBC](https://github.com/scottyab/secure-preferences) by [@scottyab](https://github.com/scottyab) (_not maintained_)

* [secure-preferences supporting Android Keystore System](https://github.com/ophio/secure-preferences) by [@ophio](https://github.com/ophio)

* [secure-preferences using FB Conceal framework](hhttps://github.com/phamquyhai/secure-preferences) by [@phamquyhai](https://github.com/phamquyhai)

* [secure-preferences supporting Android Keystore System](https://github.com/adorsys/secure-storage-android) by [@adorsys](https://github.com/adorsys)

* [secure-preferences supporting Android Keystore System](https://github.com/iamMehedi/Secured-Preference-Store) by [@iamMehedi](https://github.com/iamMehedi)

* [secure-preferences using AES-CBC](https://github.com/PDDStudio/EncryptedPreferences) by [@PDDStudio](https://github.com/PDDStudio)



## Further Reading



* [Security Best Practices: Symmetric Encryption with AES-GCM in Java and Android](https://proandroiddev.com/security-best-practices-symmetric-encryption-with-aes-in-java-7616beaaade9)

* [Security Best Practices: Symmetric Encryption with AES-CBC in Java and Android](https://proandroiddev.com/security-best-practices-symmetric-encryption-with-aes-in-java-and-android-part-2-b3b80e99ad36)

* [Stack Overflow: Security with SharedPreferences - A Discussion](https://stackoverflow.com/a/26077852/774398)



# License



Copyright 2017 Patrick Favre-Bulle



Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");

you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.

You may obtain a copy of the License at



    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0



Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software

distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,

WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.

See the License for the specific language governing permissions and

limitations under the License.