This class provides a cryptographically strong random number generator (RNG).

A cryptographically strong random number minimally complies with the statistical random number generator tests specified in FIPS 140-2, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules, section 4.9.1. Additionally, SecureRandom must produce non-deterministic output. Therefore any seed material passed to a SecureRandom object must be unpredictable, and all SecureRandom output sequences must be cryptographically strong, as described in RFC 4086: Randomness Requirements for Security.

Many SecureRandom implementations are in the form of a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG, also known as deterministic random bits generator or DRBG), which means they use a deterministic algorithm to produce a pseudo-random sequence from a random seed. Other implementations may produce true random numbers, and yet others may use a combination of both techniques.

A caller obtains a SecureRandom instance via the no-argument constructor or one of the getInstance methods. For example:

 SecureRandom r1 = new SecureRandom();
 SecureRandom r2 = SecureRandom.getInstance("NativePRNG");
 SecureRandom r3 = SecureRandom.getInstance("DRBG",
         DrbgParameters.instantiation(128, RESEED_ONLY, null));

The third statement above returns a SecureRandom object of the specific algorithm supporting the specific instantiate parameters. The implementation's effective instantiated parameters must match this minimum request but is not necessarily the same. For example, even if the request does not require a certain feature, the actual instantiation can provide the feature. An implementation may lazily instantiate a SecureRandom until it's actually used, but the effective instantiate parameters must be determined right after it's created and getParameters() should always return the same result unchanged.

Typical callers of SecureRandom invoke the following methods to retrieve random bytes:

 SecureRandom random = new SecureRandom();
 byte[] bytes = new byte[20];
 random.nextBytes(bytes);

Callers may also invoke the generateSeed(int) method to generate a given number of seed bytes (to seed other random number generators, for example):

 byte[] seed = random.generateSeed(20);

A newly created PRNG SecureRandom object is not seeded (except if it is created by SecureRandom(byte[])). The first call to nextBytes will force it to seed itself from an implementation- specific entropy source. This self-seeding will not occur if setSeed was previously called.

A SecureRandom can be reseeded at any time by calling the reseed or setSeed method. The reseed method reads entropy input from its entropy source to reseed itself. The setSeed method requires the caller to provide the seed.

Please note that reseed may not be supported by all SecureRandom implementations.

Some SecureRandom implementations may accept a SecureRandomParameters parameter in its nextBytes(byte[], SecureRandomParameters) and reseed(SecureRandomParameters) methods to further control the behavior of the methods.

Note: Depending on the implementation, the generateSeed, reseed and nextBytes methods may block as entropy is being gathered, for example, if the entropy source is /dev/random on various Unix-like operating systems.

Thread safety

SecureRandom objects are safe for use by multiple concurrent threads.