[shanePreater]

I would recommend you look into the java cryptography extension (jce)
JCE main page
Suns JCE guide

Have a read through those and then I have included a simple password encoder which I use quite often to perform simple encryptions:

Code:

package com.onevision.loanmanager.service.helper;

import java.security.MessageDigest;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

import sun.misc.BASE64Encoder;

public abstract class PasswordEncoder {
	private static final String CHARACTER_ENCODING = "UTF-8";
	private static final String DEFAULT_ALGORITHM = "SHA-256";
	private static final Logger LOG = Logger.getLogger(PasswordEncoder.class);

	public static String encodePassword(String rawPassword) {
		return encodePassword(rawPassword, DEFAULT_ALGORITHM);
	}

	public static String encodePassword(String rawPassword,
			String encryptionAlgorithm) {
		MessageDigest md = null;
		try {
			md = MessageDigest.getInstance(encryptionAlgorithm); 
			md.update(rawPassword.getBytes(CHARACTER_ENCODING));
			byte raw[] = md.digest();
			String hash = (new BASE64Encoder()).encode(raw);
			return hash;
		} catch (Exception e) {
			LOG.fatal(
					"Error encrypting the password so returning plain text: ",
					e);
		}
		return rawPassword;
	}
}