AES Encryption Android <-> iOS different results on message length > 15 byte

Question

I got a real problem in understanding the cipher/crypter on both devices.

1. If we encrypt a message on iOS and on Android using Cipher AES and the charlength of the string is not bigger than 16 (eg. "abcdefghijklmno") we got the same result after encrypting it with the same key/password.

2. But if take a longer message we get different results on iOS and Android (eg. "abcdefghijklmnop")

I did quite a lot of researching how to get the same params for both devices and at first I thought it's safe.

Here is my Cipher code for encrypting:

public String encode(Context context, String password, String text)
        throws NoPassGivenException, NoTextGivenException {
    if (password.length() == 0 || password == null) {
        throw new NoPassGivenException("Please give Password");
    }

    if (text.length() == 0 || text == null) {
        throw new NoTextGivenException("Please give text");
    }

    try {
        SecretKeySpec skeySpec = getKey(password);
        byte[] clearText = text.getBytes("UTF8");


        //IMPORTANT TO GET SAME RESULTS ON iOS and ANDROID
        final byte[] iv = new byte[16];
        Arrays.fill(iv, (byte) 0x00);
        IvParameterSpec ivParameterSpec = new IvParameterSpec(iv);

        // Cipher is not thread safe
                    //EDITED AFTER RIGHT ANSWER FROM
                    //*** Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES");   ***//
                    // TO  
        Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS7Padding");


        cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, skeySpec, ivParameterSpec);

        String encrypedValue = Base64.encodeToString(
                cipher.doFinal(clearText), Base64.DEFAULT);
        Log.d(TAG, "Encrypted: " + text + " -> " + encrypedValue);
        return encrypedValue;

    } catch (InvalidKeyException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (BadPaddingException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (NoSuchPaddingException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IllegalBlockSizeException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (InvalidAlgorithmParameterException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return "";
}


public SecretKeySpec getKey(String password)
        throws UnsupportedEncodingException {


    int keyLength = 128;
    byte[] keyBytes = new byte[keyLength / 8];
    // explicitly fill with zeros
    Arrays.fill(keyBytes, (byte) 0x0);

    // if password is shorter then key length, it will be zero-padded
    // to key length
    byte[] passwordBytes = password.getBytes("UTF-8");
    int length = passwordBytes.length < keyBytes.length ? passwordBytes.length
            : keyBytes.length;
    System.arraycopy(passwordBytes, 0, keyBytes, 0, length);
    SecretKeySpec key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "AES");
    return key;
}

And here is the iOS pendant from my collegue:

- (NSData *)AES128EncryptWithKey:(NSString *)key {

    // 'key' should be 32 bytes for AES256,
    // 16 bytes for AES256, will be null-padded otherwise
    char keyPtr[kCCKeySizeAES128 + 1]; // room for terminator (unused)
    bzero(keyPtr, sizeof(keyPtr)); // fill with zeroes (for padding)

    // insert key in char array
    [key getCString:keyPtr maxLength:sizeof(keyPtr) encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

    NSUInteger dataLength = [self length];
    size_t bufferSize = dataLength + kCCBlockSizeAES128;
    void *buffer = malloc(bufferSize);

    size_t numBytesEncrypted = 0;

    // the encryption method, use always same attributes in android and iPhone (f.e. PKCS7Padding)
    CCCryptorStatus cryptStatus = CCCrypt(kCCEncrypt,
                                          kCCAlgorithmAES128,
                                          kCCOptionPKCS7Padding,
                                          keyPtr,
                                          kCCKeySizeAES128,
                                          NULL                      /* initialization vector (optional) */,
                                          [self bytes], dataLength, /* input */
                                          buffer, bufferSize,       /* output */
                                          &numBytesEncrypted);
    if (cryptStatus == kCCSuccess) {

        return [NSData dataWithBytesNoCopy:buffer length:numBytesEncrypted];
    }

    free(buffer);
    return nil;
}

I really like to understand what the difference could be and how to avoid it. The testing that exact with bigger Strings than 15 characters gave me a hint but i do not know why :)

Thanks in Advance guys!

Answer 1

Check what padding is being used on both systems. Different padding will result in different output. Do not rely on defaults but explicitly set the padding on both sides. Your second code fragment explicitly sets PKCS7 padding. Use that on both ends.

As a general rule, do not rely on defaults between different systems. Explicitly set the IV, mode, padding, nonce or whatever else is needed. Crypto is designed to fail badly if even the slightest detail does not match.