diff --git a/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/resource/LibvirtVMDef.java b/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/resource/LibvirtVMDef.java
index b5723ed66d5..5c8d3377ecc 100644
--- a/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/resource/LibvirtVMDef.java
+++ b/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/resource/LibvirtVMDef.java
@@ -16,6 +16,8 @@
 // under the License.
 package com.cloud.hypervisor.kvm.resource;
 
+import org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils;
+
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -1168,7 +1170,7 @@ public class LibvirtVMDef {
             _port = port;
             _autoPort = autoPort;
             _listenAddr = listenAddr;
-            _passwd = passwd;
+            _passwd = StringEscapeUtils.escapeXml(passwd);
             _keyMap = keyMap;
         }
 
diff --git a/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/storage/LibvirtStorageAdaptor.java b/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/storage/LibvirtStorageAdaptor.java
index 9da833e4595..5edc07b6db9 100644
--- a/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/storage/LibvirtStorageAdaptor.java
+++ b/plugins/hypervisors/kvm/src/com/cloud/hypervisor/kvm/storage/LibvirtStorageAdaptor.java
@@ -17,13 +17,13 @@
 package com.cloud.hypervisor.kvm.storage;
 
 import java.io.File;
+import java.nio.charset.Charset;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.UUID;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 
-
 import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
 import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
 import org.libvirt.Connect;
@@ -394,7 +394,7 @@ public class LibvirtStorageAdaptor implements StorageAdaptor {
                 String authUsername = spd.getAuthUserName();
                 if (authUsername != null) {
                     Secret secret = conn.secretLookupByUUIDString(spd.getSecretUUID());
-                    String secretValue = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(secret.getByteValue()));
+                    String secretValue = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(secret.getByteValue()), Charset.defaultCharset());
                     pool.setAuthUsername(authUsername);
                     pool.setAuthSecret(secretValue);
                 }