Question

I develop a WinForms solution which uses encryption.

One of the problems I have is dealing with empty passwords (e.g. no password set).
Obviously, empty string causes Cryptographic Exception, so I tried to prevent encrypting/decrypting string if it’s empty and set its value to empty string.

However, I get exception:
CryptoGraphic Exception (Bad Data).

Here is the stack trace:

at System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException.ThrowCryptographicException(Int32 hr)
at System.Security.Cryptography.Utils._DecryptData(SafeKeyHandle hKey, Byte[] data, Int32 ib, Int32 cb, Byte[]& outputBuffer, Int32 outputOffset, PaddingMode PaddingMode, Boolean fDone)
at System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoAPITransform.TransformFinalBlock(Byte[] inputBuffer, Int32 inputOffset, Int32 inputCount)
at xxx.Security.Cryptography.Decrypt(String cipherString, Boolean useHashing) in C:\xxxx\xxxx\xxxx\xxxx\xxxx\xxxx\Cryptography.cs:line 82

Here is the source code of the class:

using System;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

namespace xxx
{
  public class Cryptography
  {
    private const string key = "xxxx";

    public static string Encrypt(string toEncrypt, bool useHashing)
    {
        if (toEncrypt == "")
        {
            string result = System.Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(toEncrypt));
            return result;
        }
        else
        {
            try
            {
                byte[] keyArray;
                byte[] toEncryptArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(toEncrypt);

                //If hashing use get hashcode regards to your key
                if (useHashing)
                {
                    MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5CryptoServiceProvider = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();
                    keyArray = md5CryptoServiceProvider.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key));
                    md5CryptoServiceProvider.Clear();
                }
                else
                    keyArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key);

                TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider tripleDesCryptoServiceProvider = new TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider();
                //set the secret key for the tripleDES algorithm
                tripleDesCryptoServiceProvider.Key = keyArray;
                //mode of operation. there are other 4 modes.
                //We choose ECB(Electronic code Book)
                tripleDesCryptoServiceProvider.Mode = CipherMode.ECB;
                //padding mode(if any extra byte added)

                tripleDesCryptoServiceProvider.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;

                ICryptoTransform cTransform = tripleDesCryptoServiceProvider.CreateEncryptor();
                //transform the specified region of bytes array to resultArray
                byte[] resultArray =
                  cTransform.TransformFinalBlock(toEncryptArray, 0,
                  toEncryptArray.Length);
                //Release resources held by TripleDes Encryptor
                tripleDesCryptoServiceProvider.Clear();
                //Return the encrypted data into unreadable string format
                return Convert.ToBase64String(resultArray, 0, resultArray.Length);
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                string result = System.Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(toEncrypt));
                return result;
            }
        }
    }


    public static string Decrypt(string cipherString, bool useHashing)
    {
        if (cipherString == "")
        {
            UTF8Encoding utf8 = new UTF8Encoding();
            return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(utf8.GetBytes(""));
        }
        else
        {
            try
            {
                byte[] keyArray;
                //get the byte code of the string

                byte[] toEncryptArray = Convert.FromBase64String(cipherString);


                if (useHashing)
                {
                    //if hashing was used get the hash code with regards to your key
                    MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5CryptoServiceProvider = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();
                    keyArray = md5CryptoServiceProvider.ComputeHash(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key));
                    //release any resource held by the MD5CryptoServiceProvider

                    md5CryptoServiceProvider.Clear();
                }
                else
                {
                    //if hashing was not implemented get the byte code of the key
                    keyArray = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key);
                }

                TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider tdes = new TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider();
                //set the secret key for the tripleDES algorithm
                tdes.Key = keyArray;
                //mode of operation. there are other 4 modes. 
                //We choose ECB(Electronic code Book)

                tdes.Mode = CipherMode.ECB;
                //padding mode(if any extra byte added)
                tdes.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;

                ICryptoTransform cTransform = tdes.CreateDecryptor();
                byte[] resultArray = cTransform.TransformFinalBlock(
                                     toEncryptArray, 0, toEncryptArray.Length);
                //Release resources held by TripleDes Encryptor                
                tdes.Clear();
                //return the Clear decrypted TEXT
                return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(resultArray);
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                UTF8Encoding utf8 = new UTF8Encoding();
                return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(utf8.GetBytes(""));
            }
        }
        }
    }
}

So the problem is in Decrypt method. Any clues please?

P.S. Yes, I know the code is not ideal. This class wasn’t written by me, I’m just trying to use it. Thank you for improvement suggestions, I will definitely concider them.

Answer 1

If you really want to allow empty passwords, make sure you special-case null as well as empty strings.

So change

if (toEncrypt == "")

to

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(toEncrypt))

and return null if toEncrypt is null or empty.

Also change

if (cipherString == "")

to

if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(cipherString))

and return an empty string if ‘cipherString’ is null or whitespace.

NB – the comment from CodesInChaos above is quite right. This code has a certain smell about it. He gives good advice.