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Step-by-step instructions for protecting data in your Java application

Ubiq Security Java Library

The Ubiq Security Java library provides convenient interaction with the Ubiq Security Platform API from applications written in the Java language. It includes a pre-defined set of classes that will provide simple interfaces to encrypt and decrypt data.

Documentation

See the Java API docs.

Installation

Requirements

Java 8 or later

Gradle Users

Add this dependency to your project's build file:

implementation group: 'com.ubiqsecurity', name: 'ubiqsecurity', version: 'latest.release'

Maven users

Add this dependency to your project's POM:
where X.Y.Z represents the appropriate version number.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.ubiqsecurity</groupId>
  <artifactId>ubiqsecurity</artifactId>
  <version>X.Y.Z</version>
</dependency>

Others

The following is a list of the JAR files required to compile, test, or deploy the ubiqsecurity library

Building from source:

Use following command to use gradlew to build the JAR file

#Linux / Mac
./gradlew assemble build

# windows
.\gradlew assemble build

Requirements

  • OpenJDK 8 or later
  • This library has dependencies on ubiq-fpe-java library available for download in the Ubiq GitHub/GitLab repository.

Usage

The library needs to be configured with your account credentials which is
available in your Ubiq Dashboard credentials.
The credentials can be set using environment variables, loaded from an explicitly
specified file, or read from the default location (~/.ubiq/credentials). A configuration can also be supplied to control specific behavior of the library. The configuration file can be loaded from an explicit file or read from the default location [~/.ubiq/configuration]. See below for a sample configuration file and content description.

Referencing the Ubiq Security library

Make sure your source files import these public types from the ubiqsecurity library:

import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqDecrypt;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqEncrypt;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqFactory;

Read credentials from a specific file and use a specific profile

UbiqCredentials credentials = UbiqFactory.readCredentialsFromFile("some-credential-file", "some-profile");

Read credentials from ~/.ubiq/credentials and use the default profile

UbiqCredentials credentials = UbiqFactory.readCredentialsFromFile("", "default");

Use the following environment variables to set the credential values

UBIQ_ACCESS_KEY_ID
UBIQ_SECRET_SIGNING_KEY
UBIQ_SECRET_CRYPTO_ACCESS_KEY

UbiqCredentials credentials = UbiqFactory.createCredentials(null, null, null, null);

Explicitly set the credentials

UbiqCredentials credentials = UbiqFactory.createCredentials("<yourAccessKey>", "<yourSigningKey>", "<yourCryptoKey>", null);

Runtime exceptions

Unsuccessful requests raise exceptions. The exception object will contain the error details.

Unstructured encryption of a simple block of data

Pass credentials and plaintext bytes into the unstructured encryption function. The encrypted data
bytes will be returned.

import ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import ubiqsecurity.UbiqEncrypt;

UbiqCredentials credentials = ...;
byte[] plainBytes = ...;
byte[] encryptedBytes = UbiqEncrypt.encrypt(credentials, plainBytes);

Unstructured decryption of a simple block of data

Pass credentials and encrypted data into the unstructured decryption function. The plaintext data
bytes will be returned.

import ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import ubiqsecurity.UbiqDecrypt;

UbiqCredentials credentials = ...;
byte[] encryptedBytes = ...;
byte[] plainBytes = UbiqDecrypt.decrypt(credentials, encryptedBytes);

Unstructured encryption of a large data element where data is loaded in chunks

  • Create an unstructured encryption object using the credentials.
  • Call the encryption instance begin() method.
  • Call the encryption instance update() method repeatedly until all the data is processed.
  • Call the encryption instance end() method.

Here's the example code from the reference source:

static void piecewiseEncryption(String inFile, String outFile, UbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials)
       throws IOException, IllegalStateException, InvalidCipherTextException {
   try (FileInputStream plainStream = new FileInputStream(inFile)) {
       try (FileOutputStream cipherStream = new FileOutputStream(outFile)) {
           try (UbiqEncrypt ubiqEncrypt = new UbiqEncrypt(ubiqCredentials, 1)) {
               // start the encryption
               byte[] cipherBytes = ubiqEncrypt.begin();
               cipherStream.write(cipherBytes);

               // process 128KB at a time
               var plainBytes = new byte[0x20000];

               // loop until the end of the input file is reached
               int bytesRead = 0;
               while ((bytesRead = plainStream.read(plainBytes, 0, plainBytes.length)) > 0) {
                   cipherBytes = ubiqEncrypt.update(plainBytes, 0, bytesRead);
                   cipherStream.write(cipherBytes);
               }

               // finish the encryption
               cipherBytes = ubiqEncrypt.end();
               cipherStream.write(cipherBytes);
           }
       }
   }
}

Unstructured decryption of a large data element where data is loaded in chunks

  • Create a unstructured decryption object using the credentials.
  • Call the decryption instance begin() method.
  • Call the decryption instance update() method repeatedly until all data is processed.
  • Call the decryption instance end() method

Here's the example code from the reference source:

static void piecewiseDecryption(String inFile, String outFile, UbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials)
       throws FileNotFoundException, IOException, IllegalStateException, InvalidCipherTextException {
   try (FileInputStream cipherStream = new FileInputStream(inFile)) {
       try (FileOutputStream plainStream = new FileOutputStream(outFile)) {
           try (UbiqDecrypt ubiqDecrypt = new UbiqDecrypt(ubiqCredentials)) {
               // start the decryption
               byte[] plainBytes = ubiqDecrypt.begin();
               plainStream.write(plainBytes);

               // process 128KB at a time
               var cipherBytes = new byte[0x20000];

               // loop until the end of the input file is reached
               int bytesRead = 0;
               while ((bytesRead = cipherStream.read(cipherBytes, 0, cipherBytes.length)) > 0) {
                   plainBytes = ubiqDecrypt.update(cipherBytes, 0, bytesRead);
                   plainStream.write(plainBytes);
               }

               // finish the decryption
               plainBytes = ubiqDecrypt.end();
               plainStream.write(plainBytes);
           }
       }
   }
}

Structured Encryption

Requirements

  • Please follow the same requirements as described above for the unstructured encryption.
  • Structured encryption requires an additional library called ubiq-fpe-java available for download in the Ubiq GitHub/GitLab repository.

Usage

You will need to obtain account credentials in the same way as described above for unstructured encryption/decryption. When
you do this in your Ubiq Dashboard credentials, you'll need to use a structured dataset.
The credentials can be set using environment variables, loaded from an explicitly
specified file, or read from the default location (~/.ubiq/credentials).

Referencing the Ubiq Security library

Make sure your source files import these public types from the ubiqsecurity library:

import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqFactory;

Reading and setting credentials

The structured encryption functions work with the credentials file and/or environmental variables in the same way as described
earlier in this document. You'll only need to make sure that the API keys you pull from the Ubiq dashboard are associated with a structured dataset

Encrypt a social security text field - simple interface

Pass credentials, the name of a structured dataset and data into the encryption function.
The encrypted data will be returned.

import ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import ubiqsecurity.UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqFactory;

String datasetName = "SSN";
String plainText = "123-45-6789";

UbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials = UbiqFactory.readCredentialsFromFile("path/to/file", "default");

String cipher = UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt.encryptFPE(ubiqCredentials, datasetName, plainText, null);
System.out.println("ENCRYPTED cipher= " + cipher + "\n");

Decrypt a social security text field - simple interface

Pass credentials, the name of a structured dataset and data into the decryption function.
The plain text data will be returned.

import ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import ubiqsecurity.UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqFactory;

String datasetName = "SSN";
String cipherText = "7\"c-`P-fGj?";

UbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials = UbiqFactory.readCredentialsFromFile("path/to/file", "default");

String plainText = UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt.decryptFPE(ubiqCredentials, datasetName, cipherText, null);
System.out.println("DECRYPTED plain text= " + plainText + "\n");

Encrypt a social security text field - bulk interface

Create an Encryption / Decryption object with the credentials and then allow repeatedly call encrypt
data using a structured dataset and the data. The encrypted data will be returned after each call

Note that you would only need to create the "ubiqEncryptDecrypt" object once for any number of encryptFPE and decryptFPE
calls, for example when you are bulk processing many such encrypt / decrypt operations in a session.

import ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import ubiqsecurity.UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqFactory;

String datasetName = "SSN";
String plainText = "123-45-6789";

UbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials = UbiqFactory.readCredentialsFromFile("path/to/file", "default");
// Create single object but use many times
try (UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt ubiqEncryptDecrypt = new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt(ubiqCredentials)) {
  // Can call encryptFPE / decryptFPE many times without creating new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt object.
  String cipherText = ubiqEncryptDecrypt.encryptFPE(datasetName, plainText, null);
}

Decrypt a social security text field - bulk interface

Create an Encryption / Decryption object with the credentials and then repeatedly decrypt
data using a structured dataset and the data. The decrypted data will be returned after each call.

Note that you would only need to create the "ubiqEncryptDecrypt" object once for any number of encryptFPE and decryptFPE
calls, for example when you are bulk processing many such encrypt / decrypt operations in a session.

import ubiqsecurity.UbiqCredentials;
import ubiqsecurity.UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt;
import com.ubiqsecurity.UbiqFactory;

String datasetName = "SSN";
String cipherText = "7\"c-`P-fGj?";

UbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials = UbiqFactory.readCredentialsFromFile("path/to/file", "default");
// Create single object but use many times
try (UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt ubiqEncryptDecrypt = new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt(ubiqCredentials)) {
  // Can call encryptFPE / decryptFPE many times without creating new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt object.
  String plainText = ubiqEncryptDecrypt.encryptFPE(datasetName, cipherText, null);
}

Custom Metadata for Usage Reporting

There are cases where a developer would like to attach metadata to usage information reported by the application. Both the structured and unstructured interfaces allow user_defined metadata to be sent with the usage information reported by the libraries.

The addReportingUserDefinedMetadata function accepts a string in JSON format that will be stored in the database with the usage records. The string must be less than 1024 characters and be a valid JSON format. The string must include both the { and } symbols. The supplied value will be used until the object goes out of scope. Due to asynchronous processing, changing the value may be immediately reflected in subsequent usage. If immediate changes to the values are required, it would be safer to create a new encrypt / decrypt object and call the addReportingUserDefinedMetadata function with the new values.

Examples are shown below.

...
try (UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt ubiqEncryptDecrypt = new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt(ubiqCredentials)) {
   ubiqEncryptDecrypt.addReportingUserDefinedMetadata("{\"some_meaningful_flag\" : true }")
   ....
   // Structured Encrypt and Decrypt operations
}

...
try (UbiqEncrypt ubiqEncrypt = new UbiqEncrypt(ubiqCredentials, 1)) {
   ubiqEncrypt.addReportingUserDefinedMetadata("{\"some_key\" : \"some_value\" }")
   ....
   // Unstructured Encrypt operations
}

Encrypt For Search

The same plaintext data will result in different cipher text when encrypted using different data keys. The Encrypt For Search function will encrypt the same plain text for a given dataset using all previously used data keys. This will provide a collection of cipher text values that can be used when searching for existing records where the data was encrypted and the specific version of the data key is not known in advance.

String dataset_name = "SSN";
String plainText = "123-45-6789";
final byte[] tweak = null;

UbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials = UbiqFactory.readCredentialsFromFile("path/to/file", "default");
UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt ubiqEncryptDecrypt = new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt(ubiqCredentials);
String[] ct_arr = ubiqEncryptDecrypt.encryptForSearch(dataset_name, plainText, tweak);

Additional information on how to use these datasets in your own applications is available by contacting
Ubiq. You may also view some use-cases implemented in the unit test UbiqFPEEncryptTest.java and the sample application UbiqSampleFPE.java source code

Configuration File

A sample configuration file is shown below. The configuration is in JSON format.

Event Reporting

The event_reporting section contains values to control how often the usage is reported.

  • wake_interval indicates the number of seconds to sleep before waking to determine if there has been enough activity to report usage
  • minimum_count indicates the minimum number of usage records that must be queued up before sending the usage
  • flush_interval indicates the sleep interval before all usage will be flushed to server.
  • trap_exceptions indicates whether exceptions encountered while reporting usage will be trapped and ignored or if it will become an error that gets reported to the application
  • timestamp_granularity indicates the how granular the timestamp will be when reporting events. Valid values are
    • "NANOS"
      // DEFAULT: values are reported down to the nanosecond resolution when possible
    • "MILLIS"
      // values are reported to the millisecond
    • "SECONDS"
      // values are reported to the second
    • "MINUTES"
      // values are reported to minute
    • "HOURS"
      // values are reported to hour
    • "HALF_DAYS"
      // values are reported to half day
    • "DAYS"
      // values are reported to the day

Key Caching

The key_caching section contains values to control how and when keys are cached.

  • ttl_seconds indicates how many seconds a cache element should remain before it must be re-retrieved. (default: 1800)
{
  "event_reporting": {
    "wake_interval": 1,
    "minimum_count": 2,
    "flush_interval": 2,
    "trap_exceptions": false,
    "timestamp_granularity" : "NANOS"
  },
  "key_caching" : {
     "ttl_seconds" : 1800
  }
}

Updated about 1 month ago

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