Which ciphers are supported for the HERE geocode api rest service? - java-7

Question

We are currently using java 7 and have trouble connecting to the geocode API from HERE.
When testing in our application we receive an error as follows:
Received fatal alert: handshake_failure
The url we request:
https://geocoder.ls.hereapi.com/6.2/geocode.json?apiKey={API-KEY}&searchtext=NYC,+USA
Running the same request in Postman works seamlessly.
Likewise running the code for the request in an alternative java 8 workspace. The request returns the expected response.
We assume the reason is that no matching ciphers exist between client and server when using java 7.
Does the HERE support team know of problems similar to this?
Is there a good workaround without having to upgrade to jdk1.8?

Answer 1

The HTTP connection to HERE APIs utilizes via TLSv1.2 cryptographic protocol because TLSv1.0 and TLSv1.1 have known security vulnerabilities.
In the jdk1.8 the SSLContext has been already set to TLSv1.2 by default therefore it works (unlike jdk1.7, you can see a handshake info if pass the -Djavax.net.debug=all parameter).
For java 7 you need to set SSLContext to TLSv1.2 before a https connection to init in your java code:
SSLContext sslCtx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1.2");
sslCtx.init(null,null,null);
SSLContext.setDefault(sslCtx);
Additionally you can update the Unlimited Strength Java(TM) Cryptography
Extension (JCE) Policy Files for the Java(TM) Platform, Standard
Edition (Java SE) Runtime Environment 7 - This bundle provides "unlimited strength" policy files which contain no
restrictions on cryptographic strengths.