Encrypt / Decrypt text

Question

I created MyClass having the capability update a database. A typical application call is like this.
MyClass newObj = new MyClass("uuuu", "pppp", otherparam );
i = newObj.update();
The first two parameters in the constructor are username and password. It is not good to have them in plain text. Please suggest what I can do in Java.
I am thinking .. if I keep a password key between a small group, and use that key to do encrption and decrption. Where is the resource that can help me?

Answer 1

>
This basic mechanics of this are very easy BUT where
do you store you encryption key?
Thank you so much for your interest and thank for your time too.
The key will be stored in the server for business application, certainly. For testing, it is in my own laptop. There is some but not a high risk of losing the database password unless a thief is a hacker (usually he is happy getting money by selling it). But we can change password.
For example, I have:
SecretKey key = javax.crypto.KeyGenerator.getInstance("DES").generateKey();
byte[ ] keyArray = new byte[1000];
keyArray = key.getEncoded();
Now I think i know how to store the key ( for example, just hardcoded the value of byte[ ] during initialization )
But I couldn't finger out the method to convert a byte array back SpecialKey key for an application.
For example, the following Encrypter method requires a SecretKey as parameter. How could I make use of the byte[ ] value and convert it to SecretKey key?
DesEncrypter(SecretKey key) {
try {
ecipher = Cipher.getInstance("DES");
dcipher = Cipher.getInstance("DES");
ecipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key);
dcipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key);
catch (javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException e) {
catch (java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException e) {
catch (java.security.InvalidKeyException e) {
}