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I have a .Net library that I am using to access a third party REST service. I stored the security information in the Properties/Settings. It works great. The thing is, I wanted to make sure my security information wasn't sitting around in a text file somewhere that could be compromised. I looked in the application.exe.config file and I didn't see a section for application settings. There is not a .config file for the .dll. I looked at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/managing-application-settings-dotnet?view=vs-2019 and it said that application settings would not work in a library/dll. This is clearly not the case since it is working. Does anyone know where it stores the settings for a library/dll? Is there a best practice to store sensitive data for a windows forms app using .Net Framework 4.7.2?
Like other projects, dlls can also use Properties.Settings to store user data.
As to store sensitive data, You can try to encrypt / decrypt the data. Then store the encrypted string into Settings.
The following is an encrypt demo you can refer to.
// dll
namespace dlltest
{
public class Class1
{
public void Show()
{
Console.WriteLine(Properties.Settings.Default.EncryptedString);
string key = "A123456."; // 8 or 16 characters
DES des = new DES();
Console.WriteLine("1.Encrypt\n2.Decrypt");
string option = Console.ReadLine();
switch (option)
{
// Encrypt
case "1":
Console.WriteLine("Input a string");
string str = Console.ReadLine();
Properties.Settings.Default.EncryptedString = des.DesEncrypt(str, key);
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
break;
// Decrypt
case "2":
Console.WriteLine(des.DesDecrypt(Properties.Settings.Default.EncryptedString, key));
break;
}
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
public class DES
{
// DES Encrypt
public string DesEncrypt(string pToEncrypt, string sKey)
{
StringBuilder ret = new StringBuilder();
try
{
DESCryptoServiceProvider des = new DESCryptoServiceProvider();
byte[] inputByteArray = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(pToEncrypt);
des.Key = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(sKey);
des.IV = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(sKey);
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
CryptoStream cs = new CryptoStream(ms, des.CreateEncryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write);
cs.Write(inputByteArray, 0, inputByteArray.Length);
cs.FlushFinalBlock();
foreach (byte b in ms.ToArray())
{
ret.AppendFormat("{0:X2}", b);
}
ret.ToString();
}
catch { }
return ret.ToString();
}
// DES Decrypt
public string DesDecrypt(string pToDecrypt, string sKey)
{
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
try
{
DESCryptoServiceProvider des = new DESCryptoServiceProvider();
byte[] inputByteArray = new byte[pToDecrypt.Length / 2];
for (int x = 0; x < pToDecrypt.Length / 2; x++)
{
int i = (Convert.ToInt32(pToDecrypt.Substring(x * 2, 2), 16));
inputByteArray[x] = (byte)i;
}
des.Key = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(sKey);
des.IV = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(sKey);
CryptoStream cs = new CryptoStream(ms, des.CreateDecryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write);
cs.Write(inputByteArray, 0, inputByteArray.Length);
cs.FlushFinalBlock();
StringBuilder ret = new StringBuilder();
}
catch { }
return System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray());
}
}
}
I encrypt password in postgres
and i want to decrypt it in c#, but two ways can not matching
.How can i do that?
private static byte[] TruncateHash(string key, int length)
{
SHA1CryptoServiceProvider sha1 = new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider();
// Hash the key.
byte[] keyBytes = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(key);
byte[] hash = sha1.ComputeHash(keyBytes);
// Truncate or pad the hash.
Array.Resize(ref hash, length);
return hash;
}
public static string EncryptString(string plaintext, string Passphrase)
{
TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider tripleDes = new TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider();
// Initialize the crypto provider.
tripleDes.Key = TruncateHash(Passphrase, tripleDes.KeySize / 8);
tripleDes.IV = TruncateHash("", tripleDes.BlockSize / 8);
// Convert the plaintext string to a byte array.
byte[] plaintextBytes = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(plaintext);
// Create the stream.
System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
// Create the encoder to write to the stream.
CryptoStream encStream = new CryptoStream(ms, tripleDes.CreateEncryptor(), System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoStreamMode.Write);
// Use the crypto stream to write the byte array to the stream.
encStream.Write(plaintextBytes, 0, plaintextBytes.Length);
encStream.FlushFinalBlock();
// Convert the encrypted stream to a printable string.
return Convert.ToBase64String(ms.ToArray());
}
public static string DecryptString(string encryptedtext, string Passphrase)
{
TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider tripleDes = new TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider();
// Initialize the crypto provider.
tripleDes.Key = TruncateHash(Passphrase, tripleDes.KeySize / 8);
tripleDes.IV = TruncateHash("", tripleDes.BlockSize / 8);
// Convert the encrypted text string to a byte array.
byte[] encryptedBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(encryptedtext);
// Create the stream.
System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
// Create the decoder to write to the stream.
CryptoStream decStream = new CryptoStream(ms, tripleDes.CreateDecryptor(), System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoStreamMode.Write);
// Use the crypto stream to write the byte array to the stream.
decStream.Write(encryptedBytes, 0, encryptedBytes.Length);
decStream.FlushFinalBlock();
// Convert the plaintext stream to a string.
return System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString(ms.ToArray());
}
I found a way to encrypt in postgres using pgcrypto.
And below is encrypt and decrypt in postgres.
SELECT encode(encrypt_iv('ABCDE121212','Key123', '','3des'), 'base64');
select decrypt_iv(decode('jEI4V5q6h5/p12NRJm666g==','base64'),'Key123','','3des')
What's wrong in my code, c# and postgres can't not matching.
I want to keep c# code and change postgres code to matching
Source Url
Encrypt function:
public static String AES_encrypt(String input, string key, string Iv, int keyLength)
{
RijndaelManaged aes = new RijndaelManaged();
aes.KeySize = keyLength;
aes.BlockSize = 128;
aes.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
aes.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;
aes.Key = mkey(key,keyLength);
aes.IV = mkey(Iv,128);
var encrypt = aes.CreateEncryptor(aes.Key, aes.IV);
byte[] xBuff = null;
using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
{
using (var cs = new CryptoStream(ms, encrypt, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
{
byte[] xXml = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(input);
cs.Write(xXml, 0, xXml.Length);
cs.FlushFinalBlock();
}
xBuff = ms.ToArray();
}
return Convert.ToBase64String(xBuff,Base64FormattingOptions.None);
}
Decrypt function:
public static String AES_decrypt(String Input, string key, string Iv, int keyLength)
{
try
{
RijndaelManaged aes = new RijndaelManaged();
aes.KeySize = keyLength;
aes.BlockSize = 128;
aes.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
aes.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;
aes.Key = mkey(key,keyLength);
aes.IV = mkey(Iv,128);
var decrypt = aes.CreateDecryptor();
byte[] encryptedStr = Convert.FromBase64String(Input);
string Plain_Text;
using (var ms = new MemoryStream(encryptedStr))
{
using (var cs = new CryptoStream(ms, decrypt, CryptoStreamMode.Read))
{
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(cs))
{
Plain_Text = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
return Plain_Text;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return null;
}
}
Helper function:
private static byte[] mkey(string skey, int keyLength)
{
int length = keyLength / 8;
byte[] key = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(skey);
byte[] k = GenerateEmptyArray(length);
for (int i = 0; i < key.Length; i++)
{
//k[i % 16] = (byte)(k[i % 16] ^ key[i]);
k[i] = key[i];
if(i == length-1)
break;
}
return k;
}
Variables:
input = "Hello World"
key = "NBJ42RKQ2vQoYFZO"
Iv = "j1C83921vHExVhVp"
keyLength = 128
Info about variables:
input - string that is not encrypted or encrypted. If it's encrypted it will be in Base64 format
key - Any Unicode character that will match the AES key size(in this example it's 128). I have written a function that will extract the specific length of characters and add them to a byte array
Code:
public static string PasswordFixer(string skey,int keyLength)
{
int length = keyLength / 8;
byte[] key = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(skey);
byte[] k = GenerateEmptyArray(length);
for (int i = 0; i < key.Length; i++)
{
k[i] = key[i];
if(i == length-1)
break;
}
return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(k);
}
Iv - it's always 128bit long meaning 16bytes. you can ignore Iv if you want, in PostgreSQL if you planing to use `encrypt` function then you can ignore the Iv by hard coding like this `aes.IV = new byte[] { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 };`
keylength-
This is the AES key length in this example we use 128bit meaning 16 bytes. whatever the characters that you use as the Key need to match the length of 16 bytes.
PostgreSQL
The equivalent SQL statement for the encryption and decryption is this
encrypt_iv,decrypt_iv
select convert_from(decrypt_iv(decode(tbl1.encrypted,'base64')::bytea ,'NBJ42RKQ2vQoYFZO','j1C83921vHExVhVp', 'aes-cbc/pad:pkcs'), 'UTF-8') as decrypted,tbl1.encrypted from (select encode(encrypt_iv('Hello World', 'NBJ42RKQ2vQoYFZO','j1C83921vHExVhVp', 'aes-cbc/pad:pkcs'), 'base64') as encrypted) as tbl1
encrypt,decrypt
select convert_from(decrypt(decode(tbl1.encrypted,'base64')::bytea ,'NBJ42RKQ2vQoYFZO', 'aes-cbc/pad:pkcs'), 'UTF-8') as decrypted,tbl1.encrypted from (select encode(encrypt('Hello World', 'NBJ42RKQ2vQoYFZO', 'aes-cbc/pad:pkcs'), 'base64') as encrypted) as tbl1
I'm writing a Windows app in C# which has to interact with a Mac app (written in Cocoa). This app encrypts files in AES with CBC (IV, a key, salt, HMAC). I don't know a lot about encryption but I think that's what it does. The Cocoa library we use is RNCryptor. They have a C# version which is what I'm using on the Windows side (with a few modifications, mainly to use byte[] instead of Strings).
Now text files are decrypted correctly, but other files (for example, a PNG file), end up corrupted (the correct file on the right, and the corrupted on the left, using UTF8 encoding, you can see there's a lot of diamonds with ?s):
I believe this is due to the encoding of the file, but I tried UTF8, Default, Unicode, ASCII... and the output files are always corrupted with different file sizes, being ASCII and the default encoding (UTF16 I believe) the closest in size.
This is the RNCryptor modified code I used:
public byte[] Decrypt (byte[] encryptedBase64, string password)
{
PayloadComponents components = this.unpackEncryptedBase64Data (encryptedBase64);
if (!this.hmacIsValid (components, password)) {
return null;
}
byte[] key = this.generateKey (components.salt, password);
byte[] plaintextBytes = new byte[0];
switch (this.aesMode) {
case AesMode.CTR:
// Yes, we are "encrypting" here. CTR uses the same code in both directions.
plaintextBytes = this.encryptAesCtrLittleEndianNoPadding(components.ciphertext, key, components.iv);
break;
case AesMode.CBC:
plaintextBytes = this.decryptAesCbcPkcs7(components.ciphertext, key, components.iv);
break;
}
return plaintextBytes;
}
private byte[] decryptAesCbcPkcs7 (byte[] encrypted, byte[] key, byte[] iv)
{
var aes = Aes.Create();
aes.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
aes.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;
var decryptor = aes.CreateDecryptor(key, iv);
string plaintext;
using (MemoryStream msDecrypt = new MemoryStream(encrypted))
{
using (CryptoStream csDecrypt = new CryptoStream(msDecrypt, decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read))
{
using (StreamReader srDecrypt = new StreamReader(csDecrypt))
{
plaintext = srDecrypt.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
return Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(plaintext);
}
private PayloadComponents unpackEncryptedBase64Data (byte[] encryptedBase64)
{
List<byte> binaryBytes = new List<byte>();
binaryBytes.AddRange (encryptedBase64);
PayloadComponents components;
int offset = 0;
components.schema = binaryBytes.GetRange(0, 1).ToArray();
offset++;
this.configureSettings ((Schema)binaryBytes [0]);
components.options = binaryBytes.GetRange (1, 1).ToArray();
offset++;
components.salt = binaryBytes.GetRange (offset, Cryptor.saltLength).ToArray();
offset += components.salt.Length;
components.hmacSalt = binaryBytes.GetRange(offset, Cryptor.saltLength).ToArray();
offset += components.hmacSalt.Length;
components.iv = binaryBytes.GetRange(offset, Cryptor.ivLength).ToArray();
offset += components.iv.Length;
components.headerLength = offset;
components.ciphertext = binaryBytes.GetRange (offset, binaryBytes.Count - Cryptor.hmac_length - components.headerLength).ToArray();
offset += components.ciphertext.Length;
components.hmac = binaryBytes.GetRange (offset, Cryptor.hmac_length).ToArray();
return components;
}
private bool hmacIsValid (PayloadComponents components, string password)
{
byte[] generatedHmac = this.generateHmac (components, password);
if (generatedHmac.Length != components.hmac.Length) {
return false;
}
for (int i = 0; i < components.hmac.Length; i++) {
if (generatedHmac[i] != components.hmac[i]) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
And this is my code decrypting and writing the file:
byte[] decryptedFile = this.decryptor.Decrypt(File.ReadAllBytes(filePath), password);
File.WriteAllBytes(filePath, decryptedFile);
What can be wrong here? Thanks in advance.
The problem is in your use of StreamReader when decrypting. StreamReader reads text (UTF-8 here), not arbitrary binary data. One solution would be to read the data into a MemoryStream, and use its ToArray() method to get the resulting byte[].
I am trying to encrypt/decrypt bytes - I have done a lot of reading about the Key and IV for the AES algorithm using the AESManaged class in System.Security.Cryptography. I read James Johnson's answer to the following question http://www.techques.com/question/1-7025135/My-Length-of-the-data-to-decrypt-is-invalid-error where he suggests that you use a random IV in the encryption routine and prepend the IV to the encrypted message. The decrypt function strips off the random IV from the beginning of the encrypted message to initialize the decryption class and then decrypts the rest of the bytes. I have attempted to do this in the following code. But I keep getting the "Length of the data to decrypt is invalid." error message when I attempt the decrypt after the encryption. Could someone possibly shed some light on what might be wrong.
USAGE: (streamToEncrypt/streamToDecrypt are System.IO.Stream)
using (var cryptoHelper = new AESHelper())
{
var encryptedBytes = cryptoHelper.Encrypt(AESHelper.StreamToByteArray(streamToEncrypt));
}
using (var cryptoHelper = new AESHelper())
{
var decryptedBytes = cryptoHelper.Decrypt(AESHelper.StreamToByteArray(streamToDecrypt));
}
public class AESHelper : IDisposable
{
public AesManaged AESManaged;
internal ICryptoTransform Encryptor { get; set; }
internal ICryptoTransform Decryptor { get; set; }
private const string KEY = "2428GD19569F9B2C2341839416C8E87G";
private static readonly byte[] Salt = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("?pt1$8f]l4g80");
private const Int32 ITERATIONS = 1042;
internal AESHelper()
{
AESManaged = new AesManaged();
AESManaged.BlockSize = AESManaged.LegalBlockSizes[0].MaxSize;
AESManaged.KeySize = AESManaged.LegalKeySizes[0].MaxSize;
AESManaged.Mode= CipherMode.CBC;
}
public void KeyGenerator()
{
var key = new Rfc2898DeriveBytes(KEY, Salt, ITERATIONS);
AESManaged.Key = key.GetBytes(AESManaged.KeySize / 8);
}
public byte[] Encrypt(byte[] input)
{
KeyGenerator();
var ms = new MemoryStream();
//Random IV
Encryptor = AESManaged.CreateEncryptor(AESManaged.Key, AESManaged.IV);
//Add the IV to the beginning of the memory stream
ms.Write(BitConverter.GetBytes(AESManaged.IV.Length), 0, sizeof(int));
ms.Write(AESManaged.IV, 0, AESManaged.IV.Length);
var cs = new CryptoStream(ms,
Encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write);
cs.Write(input, 0, input.Length);
cs.Close();
return ms.ToArray();
}
public byte[] Decrypt(byte[] input)
{
KeyGenerator();
// Get the initialization vector from the encrypted stream
var ms = new MemoryStream(input);
AESManaged.IV = ReadByteArray(ms);
Decryptor = AESManaged.CreateDecryptor(AESManaged.Key, AESManaged.IV);
var cs = new CryptoStream(ms,
Decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write);
cs.Write(input, 0, input.Length);
cs.Close();//Error occurs here
return ms.ToArray();
}
internal static byte[] ReadByteArray(Stream s)
{
var rawLength = new byte[sizeof(int)];
if (s.Read(rawLength, 0, rawLength.Length) != rawLength.Length)
{
throw new SystemException("Stream did not contain properly formatted byte array");
}
var buffer = new byte[16];
if (s.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length) != buffer.Length)
{
throw new SystemException("Did not read byte array properly");
}
return buffer;
}
internal static byte[] StreamToByteArray(Stream inputStream)
{
if (!inputStream.CanRead)
{
throw new ArgumentException();
}
// This is optional
if (inputStream.CanSeek)
{
inputStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
}
var output = new byte[inputStream.Length];
var bytesRead = inputStream.Read(output, 0, output.Length);
Debug.Assert(bytesRead == output.Length, "Bytes read from stream matches stream length");
return output;
}
public void Dispose()
{
if (AESManaged != null)
((IDisposable) AESManaged).Dispose();
}}
Many Thanks in advance
Probably you have solved this already but I'll just put my answer for others who faces similar issue.
Error occurs due to the additional information present in the input array. In public byte[] Encrypt(byte[] input) method you are writing IV length and IV before the ciphered data is written. Lines:
ms.Write(BitConverter.GetBytes(AESManaged.IV.Length), 0, sizeof(int));
ms.Write(AESManaged.IV, 0, AESManaged.IV.Length);
In public byte[] Decrypt(byte[] input) method you are reading this information and using read IV as initialization vector for AES algorithm. All fine. Then you are constructing CryptoStream with CryptoStreamMode.Write and passing MemoryStream object ms which gets decrypted data. However the passed input array contains not only the encrypted message but also the IV that you wrote during the encryption process. That is why it fails to decrypt.
What you need to do to overcome this is either extract only cipher data from the input array and pass it to: cs.Write(cipherData, 0, cipherData.Length); or change mode into CryptoStreamMode.Read and use cs.Read(outputBuff, 0, outputBuff.Length);.
Also don't use the same MemoryStream object to read and write to because you'll have some garbage in it after CryptoStream will write in it.
I have created a few little programs that export data to a text file using StreamWriter and then I read them back in using StreamReader. This works great and does what I need it to do but I was wondering if there was a way that I could save this information without the user being able to access or modify it either intentionally or unintentionally. An example of something I would have in a text file would be if a checkbox was ticked, when you tick it it outputs "Ticked" to a text file, when the program is re - opened I know what state the form was in when it was closed. I obviously don't want to keep using text files. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can easily store this information without the user being able to modify it? Thank you very much.
The simplest way is to Base-64 encode/decode this text. This is not secure, but will prevent a casual user from modifying the data.
static public string EncodeTo64(string toEncode)
{
byte[] toEncodeAsBytes
= System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(toEncode);
string returnValue
= System.Convert.ToBase64String(toEncodeAsBytes);
return returnValue;
}
static public string DecodeFrom64(string encodedData)
{
byte[] encodedDataAsBytes
= System.Convert.FromBase64String(encodedData);
string returnValue =
System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(encodedDataAsBytes);
return returnValue;
}
EDIT: Real encryption
#region Encryption
string passPhrase = "Pasword"; // can be any string
string saltValue = "sALtValue"; // can be any string
string hashAlgorithm = "SHA1"; // can be "MD5"
int passwordIterations = 7; // can be any number
string initVector = "~1B2c3D4e5F6g7H8"; // must be 16 bytes
int keySize = 256; // can be 192 or 128
private string Encrypt(string data)
{
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(this.initVector);
byte[] rgbSalt = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(this.saltValue);
byte[] buffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(data);
byte[] rgbKey = new PasswordDeriveBytes(this.passPhrase, rgbSalt, this.hashAlgorithm, this.passwordIterations).GetBytes(this.keySize / 8);
RijndaelManaged managed = new RijndaelManaged();
managed.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
ICryptoTransform transform = managed.CreateEncryptor(rgbKey, bytes);
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
CryptoStream stream2 = new CryptoStream(stream, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Write);
stream2.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
stream2.FlushFinalBlock();
byte[] inArray = stream.ToArray();
stream.Close();
stream2.Close();
return Convert.ToBase64String(inArray);
}
private string Decrypt(string data)
{
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(this.initVector);
byte[] rgbSalt = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(this.saltValue);
byte[] buffer = Convert.FromBase64String(data);
byte[] rgbKey = new PasswordDeriveBytes(this.passPhrase, rgbSalt, this.hashAlgorithm, this.passwordIterations).GetBytes(this.keySize / 8);
RijndaelManaged managed = new RijndaelManaged();
managed.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
ICryptoTransform transform = managed.CreateDecryptor(rgbKey, bytes);
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(buffer);
CryptoStream stream2 = new CryptoStream(stream, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Read);
byte[] buffer5 = new byte[buffer.Length];
int count = stream2.Read(buffer5, 0, buffer5.Length);
stream.Close();
stream2.Close();
return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer5, 0, count);
}
#endregion
You should call ProtectedData.Protect to encrypt the data using a per-user key.
Note that it wouldn't be very hard for a skilled user to decrypt and modify the data.
Anything that your program does on the user's machine can be done by the user too.
You can add a checksum or hash to the file - if the file contents doesn't agree with the checksum, you know it was tampered with.
If it is important that users can't read the contents of the file, you can encrypt it.
I don't believe you can make a file that can't be tampered with (a savvy user could use a hex editor and change it, for example) - the best you can do is detect such tampering.
You can use the Ionic zip libraries to zip those text files. If necessary you could also use features of Ionic zip like password protection and encryption. And you'll still be able to open the file (with zipping applications like, for example, 7zip) manually yourself using the same settings you used to create it in the first place.
If a program can access the information, a user usually can too. However you can produce data the user will not immediately understand.
I would start by creating a class that holds all state information you want to save, isolating the problem. Coincidentally, the BinaryFormatter class will then allow you to easily save and load this class to/from a file. I don't know if it's results are "unreadable enough" - if not, apply Base64 encoding like Leon mentioned.
While you could base64 encode or even fully encrypt your configuration data (with SHA1 or MD5) as already suggested, I think good practice would be to work with the framework classes dealing with configuration data (Configuration under the System.Configuration namespace) and it's built in ability to encrypt data (via the ProtectSection method of the ConfigurationSection class).
First of all you should declare and initialize an instance:
using System.Configuration;
...
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Configuration config;
config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(/*path to config file*/); //Use ConfigurationManager.OpenMachineConfiguration(/*path to config file*/) when opening machine configuration
...
After that you need to define a custom configuration section that defines your configuration (msdn example)
Once you've done that you just need to initialize an instance of your custom configuration section and add it to the configuration file using this code:
isTicked = config.Sections.Add("isTicked", customSection);
To encrypt the section you just added use this code (with further examples in both VB.NET and C# found here):
config.Sections["isTicked"].SectionInformation.ProtectSection("protection provider");
The "DPAPIProtectedConfigurationProvider" and "RSAProtectedConfigurationProvider" are built in by default.
Once you want to decrypt the section use this code:
config.Sections["isTicked"].SectionInformation.UnprotectSection();
To stress a point - encryption and decryption both take effect only after you save the configuration file
To save the file, use the code:
config.Save(); //config.SaveAs("string") is also available
Further information about the relevant classes and methods can be found in the msdn, starting with the Configuration class page linked above.
Try this code to encrypt and decrypt your text!
It is quite easy and strong I think...
public static class Crypto
{
private static readonly byte[] IVa = new byte[] { 0x0b, 0x0c, 0x0d, 0x0e, 0x0f, 0x11, 0x11, 0x12, 0x13, 0x14, 0x15, 0x16, 0x17 };
public static string Encrypt(this string text, string salt)
{
try
{
using (Aes aes = new AesManaged())
{
Rfc2898DeriveBytes deriveBytes = new Rfc2898DeriveBytes(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(IVa, 0, IVa.Length), Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(salt));
aes.Key = deriveBytes.GetBytes(128 / 8);
aes.IV = aes.Key;
using (MemoryStream encryptionStream = new MemoryStream())
{
using (CryptoStream encrypt = new CryptoStream(encryptionStream, aes.CreateEncryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write))
{
byte[] cleanText = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(text);
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("Before encryption text data size: ", text.Length.ToString()));
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("Before encryption byte data size: ", cleanText.Length.ToString()));
encrypt.Write(cleanText, 0, cleanText.Length);
encrypt.FlushFinalBlock();
}
byte[] encryptedData = encryptionStream.ToArray();
string encryptedText = Convert.ToBase64String(encryptedData);
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("Encrypted text data size: ", encryptedText.Length.ToString()));
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("Encrypted byte data size: ", encryptedData.Length.ToString()));
return encryptedText;
}
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{
return String.Empty;
}
}
public static string Decrypt(this string text, string salt)
{
try
{
using (Aes aes = new AesManaged())
{
Rfc2898DeriveBytes deriveBytes = new Rfc2898DeriveBytes(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(IVa, 0, IVa.Length), Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(salt));
aes.Key = deriveBytes.GetBytes(128 / 8);
aes.IV = aes.Key;
using (MemoryStream decryptionStream = new MemoryStream())
{
using (CryptoStream decrypt = new CryptoStream(decryptionStream, aes.CreateDecryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write))
{
byte[] encryptedData = Convert.FromBase64String(text);
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("Encrypted text data size: ", text.Length.ToString()));
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("Encrypted byte data size: ", encryptedData.Length.ToString()));
decrypt.Write(encryptedData, 0, encryptedData.Length);
decrypt.Flush();
}
byte[] decryptedData = decryptionStream.ToArray();
string decryptedText = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(decryptedData, 0, decryptedData.Length);
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("After decryption text data size: ", decryptedText.Length.ToString()));
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Concat("After decryption byte data size: ", decryptedData.Length.ToString()));
return decryptedText;
}
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{
return String.Empty;
}
}
}
Just to add another implementation of Leon's answer, and following the
Microsoft docs
Here a class example that encrypts and decrypts strings
public static class EncryptionExample
{
#region internal consts
internal const string passPhrase = "pass";
internal const string saltValue = "salt";
internal const string hashAlgorithm = "MD5";
internal const int passwordIterations = 3; // can be any number
internal const string initVector = "0123456789abcdf"; // must be 16 bytes
internal const int keySize = 64; // can be 192 or 256
#endregion
#region public static Methods
public static string Encrypt(string data)
{
string res = string.Empty;
try
{
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(initVector);
byte[] rgbSalt = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(saltValue);
byte[] buffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(data);
byte[] rgbKey = new PasswordDeriveBytes(passPhrase, rgbSalt, hashAlgorithm, passwordIterations).GetBytes(keySize / 8);
RijndaelManaged managed = new RijndaelManaged();
managed.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
ICryptoTransform transform = managed.CreateEncryptor(rgbKey, bytes);
byte[] inArray = null;
using (MemoryStream msEncrypt = new MemoryStream())
{
using (CryptoStream csEncrypt = new CryptoStream(msEncrypt, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
{
csEncrypt.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
csEncrypt.FlushFinalBlock();
inArray = msEncrypt.ToArray();
res = Convert.ToBase64String(inArray);
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine("Encrypt " + ex);
}
return res;
}
public static string Decrypt(string data)
{
string res = string.Empty;
try
{
byte[] bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(initVector);
byte[] rgbSalt = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(saltValue);
byte[] buffer = Convert.FromBase64String(data);
byte[] rgbKey = new PasswordDeriveBytes(passPhrase, rgbSalt, hashAlgorithm, passwordIterations).GetBytes(keySize / 8);
RijndaelManaged managed = new RijndaelManaged();
managed.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
ICryptoTransform transform = managed.CreateDecryptor(rgbKey, bytes);
using (MemoryStream msEncrypt = new MemoryStream(buffer))
{
using (CryptoStream csDecrypt = new CryptoStream(msEncrypt, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Read))
{
using (StreamReader srDecrypt = new StreamReader(csDecrypt))
{
res = srDecrypt.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine("Decrypt " + ex);
}
return res;
}
}
By the way, here is the "salt value" definition that I had googled to find out what it was.
Salt value
If an attacker does not know the password, and is trying to guess it with a brute-force attack, then every password he tries has to be tried with each salt value. So, for a one-bit salt (0 or 1), this makes the encryption twice as hard to break in this way.
Preventing unintentional string modification can be done using a checksum, as pointed in this answer.
However, it's quite easy to generate such a checksum, as they are not that many widely used algorithms.
Thus that doesn't protect you against intentional modification.
To prevent that, people use digital signatures. That allows anyone to verify your data hasn't be tampered, but only you (the owner of the private secret) can generate the signature.
Here is an example in C#.
However, as others pointed out, you need to embed your private key somewhere in your binary, and a (not so) skilled programmer will be able to retrieve it, even if you obfuscate your .net dll or you make that in a separate native process.
That would be enough for most concerns though.
If you are really concerned by security, then you need to move on the cloud, and execute the code on a machine you own.