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CodeSonar® 9.2p0 CONFIDENTIAL CodeSecure Inc
Java

JAVA.CRYPTO.SALT : Inadequate Salt (Java)

Summary

A cryptographic algorithm is used without a salt of sufficient size.

For more information see the OWASP password storage cheat sheet).

Some cryptography algorithms are nowadays considered as outdated and unsafe or actually broken, since they are too easy to decode. This checker identifies uses of unsafe algorithms for cryptography.

The OWASP documentation provides more information on Using the Java Cryptographic Extensions.

Properties

Class Name Inadequate Salt (Java)
Significance security
Mnemonic JAVA.CRYPTO.SALT
Categories
CWE CWE:916 Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort
CERT-Java CERT-Java:DRD18 Do not use the default behavior in a cryptographic library if it does not use recommended practices
OWASP-2017 OWASP-2017:A2 Broken authentication
OWASP-2021 OWASP-2021:A2 Cryptographic failures
  OWASP-2021:A7 Identification and authorization failures
OWASP-2025 OWASP-2025:A04 Cryptographic Failures
Availability Available for Java and Kotlin.
Enabling Checks for this warning class are disabled by default, and require strict Java analysis mode which is also disabled by default. To enable the checks, make the following changes to the project configuration file. 
JAVA_ANALYSIS_STRICT_MODE = Yes
WARNING_FILTER += allow class="Inadequate Salt (Java)"

Example 

import javax.crypto.spec.PBEKeySpec;

public class OtherCryptographyExamples {

  public void encryptionTest(String password,String algorithm) {
    
    try {
      byte[] salt = new byte[6];
      setRandomBytes(salt);
      PBEKeySpec pbeKey = new PBEKeySpec(password.toCharArray(), salt, 50, 128); /* Warnings of two classes issued here:
                             * - Inadequate Salt (Java)
                             *   because 'salt' is only 6 bytes.
                             * - Insecure Key Derivation (Java)
                             *   because there are only 50 iterations (instead of 10,000 or more).
                            */  
      // ...
    } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }

  private void setRandomBytes(byte[] salt) {
        // ...
  }
}

Resolution

Use a safer cryptography algorithm.

Relevant Configuration File Parameters

The following configuration file parameters affect checks for this warning class.

 

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