Question

I have the following string:

char *str = "\x45\x00\x10";

I need to encrypt it using openssl, send it over the network and decrypt to get back the same string.

I use the following code for encryption (programming in C in Ubuntu Linux):

int do_encrypt(char *cipher, char *key, char *iv, char *plaintext, int len)
{
    unsigned char outbuf[BUFSIZE];
    int outlen, tmplen;
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX ctx;
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_init(&ctx);
    EVP_EncryptInit_ex(&ctx, EVP_aes_128_cbc(), NULL, key, iv);

    if(!EVP_EncryptUpdate(&ctx, outbuf, &outlen, plaintext, len))
    {
            EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&ctx);
            return 0;
    }

    if(!EVP_EncryptFinal_ex(&ctx, outbuf + outlen, &tmplen))
    {
            EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&ctx);
            return 0;
    }

    outlen += tmplen;
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&ctx);

    outbuf[outlen] = '\0';
    strcpy(cipher,outbuf);
    return 1;
}

I use the following code for decryption:

int do_decrypt(char *plain, char *key, char *iv, char *cipher)
{
    unsigned char outbuf[BUFSIZE];
    int outlen, tmplen;
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX ctx;

    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_init(&ctx);
    EVP_DecryptInit_ex(&ctx, EVP_aes_128_cbc(), NULL, key, iv);

    if(!EVP_DecryptUpdate(&ctx, outbuf, &outlen, cipher, strlen(cipher)))
    {
            EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&ctx);
            return 0;
    }

    if(!EVP_DecryptFinal_ex(&ctx, outbuf + outlen, &tmplen))
    {
            EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&ctx);
            return 0;
    }

    outlen += tmplen;
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&ctx);

    outbuf[outlen] = '\0';
    strcpy(plain,outbuf);

    return outlen;
 }

When I encrypt str using the first function, and passing the third argument as 3 (I don’t want to pass strlen(str) as it will not encrypt entire string), and decrypt it using the second function, I get the following plain text back:

 \x45\x00\x00 // recovered plain text

What correction should I make to my code so that I may encrypt the whole string and still get the entire string back, even if original string contained null characters ?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You… do know that strcpy() will stop at the first NUL, right? Use strncpy() instead.