News
Oracle Launches Jipher to Support Java Cryptography in FIPS 140-2 Regulated Environments
- By John K. Waters
- May 5, 2025
Oracle Corp on Tuesday announced the release of Oracle Jipher, a Java Cryptographic Service Provider designed to enable secure deployments of Java applications in U.S. government and enterprise environments that require FIPS 140-2 compliance.
Jipher packages a validated OpenSSL cryptographic module to meet Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2, a widely recognized benchmark established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for assessing the security of cryptographic modules.
While the Java Development Kit (JDK) has long included cryptographic providers such as Sun, SunRsaSign, and SunJCE, these do not meet FIPS 140-2 validation requirements. As a result, customers previously turned to third-party providers for compliance—often incurring trade-offs in performance, support complexity, and licensing costs.
With Jipher, Oracle aims to offer a native, standards-compliant solution for customers in regulated industries. The provider is implemented as a JAR file and is compatible with Oracle JDK 17 and 21, as well as GraalVM editions for those versions. Support for Jipher will continue through at least September 2026, aligning with Oracle JDK 17's premier support timeline.
Jipher is available under the Java SE OTN license and can be downloaded from Java Tools and Resources and My Oracle Support (MOS) for Java SE subscribers. It is also available for workloads running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
The company emphasized that the release is part of a broader roadmap to enhance Java's cryptographic capabilities, including support for post-quantum cryptography. Oracle noted that JDK 24 already includes implementations of post-quantum algorithms standardized by FIPS 203 and 204, underscoring its focus on future-proofing Java security.
Oracle invited users to provide feedback on Jipher and directed developers to its Java Cryptography Roadmap for further details on upcoming features.
About the Author
John K. Waters is the editor in chief of a number of Converge360.com sites, with a focus on high-end development, AI and future tech. He's been writing about cutting-edge technologies and culture of Silicon Valley for more than two decades, and he's written more than a dozen books. He also co-scripted the documentary film Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, which aired on PBS. He can be reached at [email protected].