Question

I want to provide the user the ability to save personal data encrypted. This might be trivial or might have been already asked, but I am not able to find an example of an easy to use way to encrypt/decrypt a password.

I really don’t need any super-magic-unbreakable password. I just need the password to be like difficult to break.

I’ve seen some MSDN and SO questions but haven’t found something to use.

Answer 1

David, I thought your answer was nifty, but I thought those would be niftier as extension methods. That would allow such syntax as:

string cypherText;
string clearText;

using (var secureString = "Some string to encrypt".ToSecureString())
{
    cypherText = secureString.EncryptString();
}

using (var secureString = cypherText.DecryptString())
{
    clearText = secureString.ToInsecureString();
}

Here’s the updated code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Security;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

public static class SecureIt
{
    private static readonly byte[] entropy = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes("Salt Is Not A Password");

    public static string EncryptString(this SecureString input)
    {
        if (input == null)
        {
            return null;
        }

        var encryptedData = ProtectedData.Protect(
            Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(input.ToInsecureString()),
            entropy,
            DataProtectionScope.CurrentUser);

        return Convert.ToBase64String(encryptedData);
    }

    public static SecureString DecryptString(this string encryptedData)
    {
        if (encryptedData == null)
        {
            return null;
        }

        try
        {
            var decryptedData = ProtectedData.Unprotect(
                Convert.FromBase64String(encryptedData),
                entropy,
                DataProtectionScope.CurrentUser);

            return Encoding.Unicode.GetString(decryptedData).ToSecureString();
        }
        catch
        {
            return new SecureString();
        }
    }

    public static SecureString ToSecureString(this IEnumerable<char> input)
    {
        if (input == null)
        {
            return null;
        }

        var secure = new SecureString();

        foreach (var c in input)
        {
            secure.AppendChar(c);
        }

        secure.MakeReadOnly();
        return secure;
    }

    public static string ToInsecureString(this SecureString input)
    {
        if (input == null)
        {
            return null;
        }

        var ptr = Marshal.SecureStringToBSTR(input);

        try
        {
            return Marshal.PtrToStringBSTR(ptr);
        }
        finally
        {
            Marshal.ZeroFreeBSTR(ptr);
        }
    }
}