Question

I found an example for en/decoding strings in PHP. At first it looks very good but it wont work 🙁

Does anyone know what the problem is?

$Pass = "Passwort";
$Clear = "Klartext";

$crypted = fnEncrypt($Clear, $Pass);
echo "Encrypted: ".$crypted."</br>";

$newClear = fnDecrypt($crypted, $Pass);
echo "Decrypted: ".$newClear."</br>";

function fnEncrypt($sValue, $sSecretKey) {
    return trim(base64_encode(mcrypt_encrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, $sSecretKey, $sDecrypted, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB, mcrypt_create_iv(mcrypt_get_iv_size(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB), MCRYPT_RAND))));
}

function fnDecrypt($sValue, $sSecretKey) {
    return trim(mcrypt_decrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, $sSecretKey, base64_decode($sEncrypted), MCRYPT_MODE_ECB, mcrypt_create_iv(mcrypt_get_iv_size(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB), MCRYPT_RAND)));
}

The result is:

Encrypted: boKRNTYYNp7AiOvY1CidqsAn9wX4ufz/D9XrpjAOPk8=

Decrypted: —‚(ÑÁ ^ yË~F'¸®Ó–í œð2Á_B‰Â—

Answer 1

$sDecrypted and $sEncrypted were undefined in your code. See a solution that works (but is not secure!):

---

STOP!

This example is insecure! Do not use it!

---

$Pass = "Passwort";
$Clear = "Klartext";        

$crypted = fnEncrypt($Clear, $Pass);
echo "Encrypred: ".$crypted."</br>";

$newClear = fnDecrypt($crypted, $Pass);
echo "Decrypred: ".$newClear."</br>";        

function fnEncrypt($sValue, $sSecretKey)
{
    return rtrim(
        base64_encode(
            mcrypt_encrypt(
                MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256,
                $sSecretKey, $sValue, 
                MCRYPT_MODE_ECB, 
                mcrypt_create_iv(
                    mcrypt_get_iv_size(
                        MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, 
                        MCRYPT_MODE_ECB
                    ), 
                    MCRYPT_RAND)
                )
            ), "\0"
        );
}

function fnDecrypt($sValue, $sSecretKey)
{
    return rtrim(
        mcrypt_decrypt(
            MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, 
            $sSecretKey, 
            base64_decode($sValue), 
            MCRYPT_MODE_ECB,
            mcrypt_create_iv(
                mcrypt_get_iv_size(
                    MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256,
                    MCRYPT_MODE_ECB
                ), 
                MCRYPT_RAND
            )
        ), "\0"
    );
}

But there are other problems in this code which make it insecure, in particular the use of ECB (which is not an encryption mode, only a building block on top of which encryption modes can be defined). See Fab Sa’s answer for a quick fix of the worst problems and Scott’s answer for how to do this right.