Develop Reference

Understanding self-signed certificates in c#

Recently I came across this c# code:
var dn = new X500DistinguishedName($"CN={_appSettings.CommonName};OU={_appSettings.OrganizationalUnit}", X500DistinguishedNameFlags.UseSemicolons);
SubjectAlternativeNameBuilder sanBuilder = new SubjectAlternativeNameBuilder();
sanBuilder.AddUri(new Uri($"urn:{_appSettings.ApplicationUri}"));
using (RSA rsa = RSA.Create(2048))
{
var request = new CertificateRequest(dn, rsa, HashAlgorithmName.SHA256, RSASignaturePadding.Pkcs1);
request.CertificateExtensions.Add(sanBuilder.Build());
var selfSignedCert = request.CreateSelfSigned(new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1)), new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(3650)));
...
}
...
Having a look closer at the CertificateRequest constructor parameters, the rsa key is described as:
A RSA key whose public key material will be included in the certificate or certificate request. If the CreateSelfSigned(DateTimeOffset, DateTimeOffset) method is called, this key is used as a private key.
The bold part is the one I don't really understand. Does that mean that when self signing the certificate, the certificate is signed using the given RSA key AND adds the same key as public key to the certificate?
In my understanding for TLS, we have two public-key pairs, one for signing and one for encryption. The CA signs a certificate with its private key and offers a public key to the clients to verify the signature by decrypting it with the public key, whereas the provider of a service offers a public key which the clients use to encrypt their keys first in the tls handshake which after that gets decrypted with the service providers private key.
However, in the above code sample, we create a certificate that contains what exactly? Server public key is for encryption, but what key for decryption of the signature?

EnvelopedCms decryption does not work with Azure Key Vault

I've been struggeling with this for days now and RFC 2315 is a bit hard to understand.
I'm trying to implement my own version of EnvelopedCms.Decrypt(), so that I can use the certificate operations of Azure Key Vault to UnwrapKey and/or Decrypt a PKCS#7 message (CMS Object) in a correct way. I use EnevelopedCms in .Net to Decode the message, then I try to Decrypt the EnvelopedCms.ContentInfo.Content.
This is what I try to do;
public static async Task<byte[]> DecryptCustom(string certificateId, string encryptedBase64Content)
{
var bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(encryptedBase64Content);
var contentInfo = new ContentInfo(bytes);
var envelopedCms = new EnvelopedCms(contentInfo);
envelopedCms.Decode(bytes);
// envelopedCms.Decrypt() <-- no go. Can't extract certificate from Key Vault
// My (naive) attempt to decrypt CMS content using Azure Key Vault certificates
byte[] decryptedContent;
using (var client = new KeyVaultClient(GetKeyVaultToken))
{
var decryptionresult = await client.DecryptAsync(GetKeyUrl(certificateId), "RSA1_5", envelopedCms.ContentInfo.Content);
decryptedContent = decryptionresult.Result;
}
return decryptedContent;
}
I was hoping it could be that easy, but it gives me the following error;
Unable to decrypt specified value with this key.
I read something about octets in RFC 2315, so maybe the stream (byte-array) needs some reordering before I decrypt. Do I need to unwrap some symmetric key to decrypt the real payload? I'm on thin ice here.
I'm not a cryptography professional so I might have missed something obvious, too. I was hoping someone knew what to do in this case as I really want to keep my certificates inside the Key Vault (HSM)

CMS envelope contents are encrypted using a session key, and this key is encrypted with each recipients (there can be many) public key before transmission.
What you need is to extract your recipient's encrypted session key, and unwrap it with the private key stored in key vault. I'm not near Visual Studio right now, but here is the pseudocode:
// Extract the first (and often only) receiver's encrypted session key
var key = envelopedCms.Receivers[0].EncryptionKey;
// Unwrap the sessionKey using the receiver's private key stored in key vault:
var sessionKey = (await keyVaultClient.Unwrap(uri, "certificatename", key)).Result;
Finally, using the sessionKey, you can decrypt the envelope contents (ContentInfo.Content). The encryption type is specified in the envelope's encryption algorithm-property.

How to work with (and create) X509 Certificates for private/public key encryption of JWT Tokens

I am trying to figure out a way of authentication between two distributed services.
I don't want to have a shared secret distributed on every service host, because it would mean that once one host has been compromised, all hosts are compromised.
So my scenario is:
Host A knows the public key of Host B
Host A encodes and encryptes the jwt using Host B´s public key
Host B receives and decrypts the jwt using its private key, that it only knows itself.
The jose-jwt package:
https://github.com/dvsekhvalnov/jose-jwt
seems like a good option to me. Beside the signing of the jwt, it also supports encryption using private/public keys.
On the page there are the following examples for encoding and decoding a jwt:
Encode:
var publicKey=new X509Certificate2("my-key.p12", "password").PublicKey.Key as RSACryptoServiceProvider;
string token = Jose.JWT.Encode(payload, publicKey, JweAlgorithm.RSA_OAEP, JweEncryption.A256GCM);
Decode:
var privateKey=new X509Certificate2("my-key.p12", "password", X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable | X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet).PrivateKey as RSACryptoServiceProvider;
string json = Jose.JWT.Decode(token,privateKey);
Now, here is what i don´t understand:
How can I create a .p12 certificate file that only contains the public key information (for the host/service A that encodes the jwt) ?
.. and how can I create a .p12 certificate file that contains both, the public and the private key information (for the host/service B that decodes the jwt) ?
From all the research that I have done, i get the impression that you can either only make a .p12 file that contains both, or one that contains only the public key. But it seems there is no way to create two .p12 files, one with both information and one with only the public key. What am I missing?
Thanks for your answers.

Normally a PKCS12/PFX is not used for public-only, but you can do it if you like.
Assuming that cert.HasPrivateKey is true: cert.Export(X509ContentType.Pkcs12, somePassword) will produce a byte[] that you can write to "publicAndPrivate.p12" (or whatever).
Normally for a public-only certificate you'll write it down just as the X.509 data, either DER-binary or PEM-DER encoded. .NET doesn't make PEM-DER easy, so we'll stick with DER-binary. You can get that data by either cert.RawData, or cert.Export(X509ContentType.Cert) (both will produce identical results, since this export form has no random data in it). (publicOnly.cer)
If you really want a PKCS12 blob which has just the public certificate:
using (X509Certificate2 publicOnly = new X509Certificate2(publicPrivate.RawData))
{
return publicOnly.Export(X509ContentType.Pkcs12, somePassword);
}
The resulting byte[] could then be publicOnly.p12.

Key does not exist when trying to decrypt using RSA

So, I am creating a simple "web chat", using TcpClient and TcpListener class. I want all data sent to be encrpyted, and I am using AES encryption. So first I have to make sure AES key from server is securely sent to client. I am trying to achieve this, by encrypting AES key with RSA and then sending it to client and there decrypting it with RSA again.
So first of all I created an RSACryptoServiceProvider on server and extracted public key. I sent public key to client and there created RSACryptoServiceProvider and imported that key. When I call Decrpyt method I get an key does not exist exception. This is my code:
Server:
This is sending public key to client.
RSACryptoServiceProvider rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
string privateXml = rsa.ToXmlString(true);
string publicXml = rsa.ToXmlString(false);
Byte[] pubKey = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(publicXml);
clientStream.Write(pubKey, 0, pubKey.Length);
AesCryptoServiceProvider aes = new AesCryptoServiceProvider(); // simetrično kriptiranje
byte[] aesKey = aes.Key;
byte[] encryptedRSA = rsa.Encrypt(aesKey, false);
clientStream.Write(encryptedRSA, 0, encryptedRSA.Length);
Client:
Byte[] serverPublicKey = new Byte[1024];
Int32 bytes1 = stream.Read(serverPublicKey, 0, serverPublicKey.Length);
string serverKey = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(serverPublicKey, 0, bytes1);
serverKey = serverKey.Replace("\0", "");
RSACryptoServiceProvider rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
rsa.FromXmlString(serverKey);
Byte[] bytes2 = new Byte[128];
String aesKey = null;
stream.Read(bytes2, 0, bytes2.Length);
byte[] decryptedKey = rsa.Decrypt(bytes2, false);

Sorry this wasn't small enough to fit in a comment.
You've sent the public key to the client. This will only allow the client to encrypt data to be sent to the server. To decrypt data the client would need a private key (hence your exception)
Sending your public key to someone does not allow you to send them encrypted messages, it allows them to send you encrypted messages securely, so in your example only the client can send an encrypted message.
In your scenario this would mean that the client would need to generate an AES key, encrypt it using the public key it has been been sent and then the server can decrypt it and use the AES key. HOWEVER I would not recommend this as it has many flaws including being very susceptible to a man in the middle attack. This is because we have no way to verify the public key we receive is the one that belongs to the server (some one else could be intercepting and modifying the tcp stream to be inserting their own key pair and thereby gaining access to the AES key and being able to snoop on the rest of the communication).
You should consider looking into using the SslStream class http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.security.sslstream(v=vs.100).aspx
If you wanted to carry on as you have been then you would need to let the client generate the key and have some mechanism to verify the public key received.
The usually way of verifying public keys is by using certificates (i.e. You have a third party (certificate authority) that both the server and client trusts and that third party has signed the public key to say it does actually belong to the server)
If you don't want to get a certificate that is signed by a trusted certificate authority then you could use a self signed certificate but there is not much benefit over just hardcoding the public key into the client application as you would have to hardcode the certificate thumbprint of the self signed certificate anyway.

Encryption with PGP key

I was recently assigned to task to encrypt some data and send it to our server. I found some valuable resources on the internet but they all require a public key, private key and secret password for the encryption. Please is there any simple way I can encrypt with just pgp key, since that's what I was given?

I assume that you have been given a public OpenPGP key. This one is enough to do encryption of data, which is intended to be decrypted by the person who gave you his public key.
In .NET you can use BouncyCastle or OpenPGPBlackbox package of our SecureBlackbox product. SecureBlackbox comes with extensive samples and support is offered as well (unlike alternatives).

Public PGP keys can encrypt data and verify signatures. Private PGP keys can decrypt data and sign data. If you have someone's public key, just use it, it won't prompt you for a password.

PGP simply works with pairs of private and public keys. The secret password is optional as far as i know.

The standard PGP encryption process in any language works as follows:
Step 1: Generate your private / public key pair
First generate your OpenPGP key pair e.g. with gnupg. The pair consists of a public key, which is used by the sender to encrypt the data and the private key, which is used by the recipient to decrypt the data.
Step 2: Share your public key and collect public keys of other parties
Each side will need to have the public keys of all the other parties. To do this step, you can give your public key using an usb stick or you upload it to a public key server.
Step 3: Encrypt and send your data
You write your data and encrypt it for the recipients.
You might also sign the data, which guarantees that the recipient can verify that the data has been created by you. After the encryption you send the data to the recipients.
Step 4: Authentication of data
You don't have to do this step but another benefit of asymmetric encryption such as PGP is that it allows for authentication. After you have exchanged public keys with your partners, the private keys can be used to digitally sign the encrypted content, allowing the decrypting site to verify the authenticity of the sender.
After data encryption is completed with the private key, you encrypt the session key with the public key that's known to the recipient (and maybe other parties as well). After that you can optionally create a hash of the encrypted data and sign this hash with your private key, this is called a signature.
Save the data in, for example, OpenPGP format.
Step 5: Decrypt data and verify signature
If you receive a data you decrypt it and if the data is signed, you verify the signature to be sure the data is sent by the sender to whom you have the public key.

Recently, I'm doing the PGP Encryption and sending files over to SFTP server. Here's the simple steps I follow with Python:
pip install py-pgp
Keep public_key in the same directory
Get recipients info gpg --list-keys
Script:
import os, gnupg
key = '<public_key>.asc'
src = '<file_to_be_encrypted>'
dst = './' #destination, it could be current directory
def encrypt(key, src):
home = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), '')
gpg = gnupg.GPG(gnupghome=home)
with open(key, "rb") as f:
keys = gpg.import_keys(f.read())
with open(src, "rb") as f:
result = gpg.encrypt_file(f, recipients='<name_retrieved_from_public_key>', output='<file_name>.pgp', always_trust=True)
if not result:
raise RuntimeError(result.status)
encrypt(key, src)
This will provide you the Encrypted file within the same directory.