🛡️ Sentinel: [HIGH/ENHANCEMENT] Fix timing attacks and improve charset consistency

.gitignore

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ target
 log.txt
 /AuthSchema/
 .vscode
-secureData*.txt
+*secureData*.txt
 logfile.txt
 rmc_log.txt
+logfileConf.txt

.jules/sentinel.md

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# Sentinel Security Journal
+
+## 2026-02-01 - [Unsalted Password Storage in Authentication Protocol]
+**Vulnerability:** Passwords are stored in the database as unsalted SHA256 hashes (with a dummy '000000000' salt prefix).
+**Learning:** The authentication protocol requires the client to compute a salted hash of the stored hash. Since the client does not have access to a per-user salt before authentication, the stored hash must be computable by the client using only the password. This architectural constraint prevents the use of per-user salts in the database without changing the authentication protocol (e.g., by sending the salt to the client first).
+**Prevention:** When designing authentication protocols, ensure that the server-side storage can use modern, salted hashing (like Argon2 or bcrypt) and that the protocol supports challenge-response mechanisms that don't depend on the client knowing the exact stored representation.

JFramework/crypto/src/main/java/it/richkmeli/jframework/crypto/algorithm/SHA256.java

@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@
 import org.bouncycastle.crypto.digests.SHA256Digest;
 import it.richkmeli.jframework.util.TypeConverter;
 
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+
 public class SHA256 {
     public static byte[] hash(byte[] input) {
         SHA256Digest digest = new SHA256Digest();
@@ -15,7 +17,7 @@ public static byte[] hash(byte[] input) {
 
     // sha256: string to hex
     public static String hash(String input) {
-        return TypeConverter.bytesToHex(hash(input.getBytes()));
+        return TypeConverter.bytesToHex(hash(input.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8)));
     }
 
     public static String hashToString(byte[] input) {

JFramework/crypto/src/main/java/it/richkmeli/jframework/crypto/controller/PasswordManager.java

@@ -3,7 +3,8 @@
 import it.richkmeli.jframework.crypto.algorithm.SHA256;
 import it.richkmeli.jframework.util.RandomStringGenerator;
 
-import java.nio.charset.Charset;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import java.security.MessageDigest;
 import java.util.Base64;
 
 public class PasswordManager {
@@ -26,20 +27,20 @@ public static String hashPassword(String password, boolean saltEnabled) {
 
         //System.out.println("hashPassword, saltS: " + saltS + " " + saltS.length() + " | hashedPassword: " + hashedPassword + " " + hashedPassword.length());
         String out = saltS + hashedPassword;
-        return Base64.getUrlEncoder().encodeToString(out.getBytes(Charset.defaultCharset()));
+        return Base64.getUrlEncoder().encodeToString(out.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
     }
 
     // hashedPassword = db password, hashedSaltPassword = login password
     public static boolean verifyPassword(String hashedPassword, String hashedSaltPassword) {
-        String decodedHashedPassword = new String(Base64.getUrlDecoder().decode(hashedPassword));
-        String decodedHashedSaltPassword = new String(Base64.getUrlDecoder().decode(hashedSaltPassword));
+        String decodedHashedPassword = new String(Base64.getUrlDecoder().decode(hashedPassword), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
+        String decodedHashedSaltPassword = new String(Base64.getUrlDecoder().decode(hashedSaltPassword), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
         String salt = decodedHashedSaltPassword.substring(0, 9);
         String hashSP = decodedHashedSaltPassword.substring(9);
         String hashP = decodedHashedPassword.substring(9);
 
         //System.out.println("verifyPassword, saltS: " + salt + " " + salt.length() + " | hashedSaltPassword: " + hashSP + " " + hashSP.length());
         String hp = SHA256.hash(hashP + salt);
 
-        return hashSP.equalsIgnoreCase(hp);
+        return MessageDigest.isEqual(hashSP.toLowerCase().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8), hp.toLowerCase().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
     }
 }

JFramework/crypto/src/main/java/it/richkmeli/jframework/crypto/controller/token/TokenManager.java

@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@
 import it.richkmeli.jframework.crypto.exception.CryptoException;
 import it.richkmeli.jframework.util.RandomStringGenerator;
 
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import java.security.MessageDigest;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -29,7 +31,7 @@ public static boolean verifyNumericCompact(String numericCompactToken, String va
          String extendedToken = generate(extractedNumericSalt + value, false);
         // put extractedNumericSalt at first chars of extendedToken
         extendedToken = reduceToNumeric(extractedNumericSalt + extendedToken, numericCompactToken.length());
-        return numericCompactToken.equalsIgnoreCase(extendedToken);
+        return MessageDigest.isEqual(numericCompactToken.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8), extendedToken.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
     }
 
     public static String generate(String value) {
@@ -109,7 +111,7 @@ public static boolean verifyTemporized(String token, String value, int minutesOf
             hashed = token;
             calculatedHash = SHA256.hash(value + (currentTimeMinutes * minutesOfValidity));
         }
-        return hashed.equalsIgnoreCase(calculatedHash);
+        return MessageDigest.isEqual(hashed.toLowerCase().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8), calculatedHash.toLowerCase().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
     }
 
     private static String reduceToNumeric(String extendedToken, int length) {

JFramework/util/src/main/java/it/richkmeli/jframework/util/RandomStringGenerator.java

@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ public class RandomStringGenerator {
     public static final String ALPHANUMERIC_ALPHABET = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
     public static final String NUMERIC_ALPHABET = "0123456789";
 
+    private static final SecureRandom secureRandom = new SecureRandom();
+
     public static String generateAlphanumericString(int length) {
         String alphabet = ALPHANUMERIC_ALPHABET;
         return generateString(length, alphabet);
@@ -21,7 +23,6 @@ private static String generateString(int length, String alphabet) {
         int alphabetLength = alphabet.length();
 
         StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
-        SecureRandom secureRandom = new SecureRandom();
 
         for (int i = 0; i < length; ++i) {
             result.append(alphabet.charAt(secureRandom.nextInt(alphabetLength)));
@@ -42,11 +43,10 @@ public static String generateBoundedString(int targetStringLength, int leftLimit
         //int leftLimit = 97; // letter 'a'
         //int rightLimit = 122; // letter 'z'
         //int targetStringLength = 10;
-        SecureRandom random = new SecureRandom();
         StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder(targetStringLength);
         for (int i = 0; i < targetStringLength; i++) {
             int randomLimitedInt = leftLimit + (int)
-                    (random.nextFloat() * (rightLimit - leftLimit + 1));
+                    (secureRandom.nextFloat() * (rightLimit - leftLimit + 1));
             buffer.append((char) randomLimitedInt);
         }
         return buffer.toString();
@@ -55,19 +55,19 @@ public static String generateBoundedString(int targetStringLength, int leftLimit
 
     public static String generateUtf8String(int length) {
         byte[] array = new byte[length]; // length is bounded by 7
-        new SecureRandom().nextBytes(array);
+        secureRandom.nextBytes(array);
         return new String(array, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
     }
 
     public static String generateUtf16String(int length) {
         byte[] array = new byte[length]; // length is bounded by 7
-        new SecureRandom().nextBytes(array);
+        secureRandom.nextBytes(array);
         return new String(array, StandardCharsets.UTF_16);
     }
 
     public static String generateASCIItring(int length) {
         byte[] array = new byte[length]; // length is bounded by 7
-        new SecureRandom().nextBytes(array);
+        secureRandom.nextBytes(array);
         return new String(array, StandardCharsets.US_ASCII);
     }