SHA or MD5 Digests in ColdFusion

by Pete Freitag

If you need to create a message digest, you can use Java's MessageDigest class. Here's an example:

<cfset digest = CreateObject("java", "java.security.MessageDigest")>
<cfset digest = digest.getInstance("SHA")>

<cfset result = digest.digest(str.getBytes())>
<cfset resultStr = ToBase64(result)>

<cfoutput>#resultStr#</cfoutput>

There are several different digest algorithms that you can use: MD2, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512. To use a different algorithm, put it in the getInstance() method on the second line.

Note that the Hash function in ColdFusion can be used to create a MD5 digest of a string, it returns the result as a 32 byte hex string. The example above returns the string using Base64 encoding. You can also use this method for checking or generating MD5's on files with ColdFusion.

The Fixinator Code Security Scanner for ColdFusion & CFML is an easy to use security tool that every CF developer can use. It can also easily integrate into CI for automatic scanning on every commit.

Comments

Merlinox

I've to use md5 to crypt a string. But I need to crypt it using a simmetric key (ex.: 12345). How I do it?

Merlinox

Sorry. I've readed bad documentation. I've resolved problem with hash() and toBase64() CF Function. Thanks