Question

I’m trying to encrypt and decrypt a file stream over a socket using RijndaelManaged, but I keep bumping into the exception

CryptographicException: Length of the data to decrypt is invalid.
    at System.Security.Cryptography.RijndaelManagedTransform.TransformFinalBlock(Byte[] inputBuffer, Int32 inputOffset, Int32 inputCount)
    at System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoStream.FlushFinalBlock()
    at System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoStream.Dispose(Boolean disposing)

The exception is thrown at the end of the using statement in receiveFile, when the whole file has been transferred.

I tried searching the web but only found answers to problems that arise when using Encoding when encrypting and decrypting a single string. I use a FileStream, so I don’t specify any Encoding to be used, so that should not be the problem. These are my methods:

private void transferFile(FileInfo file, long position, long readBytes)
{
    // transfer on socket stream
    Stream stream = new FileStream(file.FullName, FileMode.Open);
    if (position > 0)
    {
        stream.Seek(position, SeekOrigin.Begin);
    }
    // if this should be encrypted, wrap the encryptor stream
    if (UseCipher)
    {
        stream = new CryptoStream(stream, streamEncryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read);
    }
    using (stream)
    {
        int read;
        byte[] array = new byte[8096];
        while ((read = stream.Read(array, 0, array.Length)) > 0)
        {
            streamSocket.Send(array, 0, read, SocketFlags.None);
            position += read;
        }
    }
}

private void receiveFile(FileInfo transferFile)
{
    byte[] array = new byte[8096];
    // receive file
    Stream stream = new FileStream(transferFile.FullName, FileMode.Append);
    if (UseCipher)
    {
        stream = new CryptoStream(stream, streamDecryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write);
    }
    using (stream)
    {
        long position = new FileInfo(transferFile.Path).Length;
        while (position < transferFile.Length)
        {
            int maxRead = Math.Min(array.Length, (int)(transferFile.Length - position));
            int read = position < array.Length
                        ? streamSocket.Receive(array, maxRead, SocketFlags.None)
                        : streamSocket.Receive(array, SocketFlags.None);
            stream.Write(array, 0, read);
            position += read;
        }
    }
}

This is the method I use to set up the ciphers. byte[] init is a generated byte array.

private void setupStreamCipher(byte[] init)
{
    RijndaelManaged cipher = new RijndaelManaged();
    cipher.KeySize = cipher.BlockSize = 256; // bit size
    cipher.Mode = CipherMode.ECB;
    cipher.Padding = PaddingMode.ISO10126;
    byte[] keyBytes = new byte[32];
    byte[] ivBytes = new byte[32];

    Array.Copy(init, keyBytes, 32);
    Array.Copy(init, 32, ivBytes, 0, 32);

    streamEncryptor = cipher.CreateEncryptor(keyBytes, ivBytes);
    streamDecryptor = cipher.CreateDecryptor(keyBytes, ivBytes);
}

Anyone have an idea in what I might be doing wrong?

Answer 1

It looks to me like you’re not properly sending the final block. You need to at least FlushFinalBlock() the sending CryptoStream in order to ensure that the final block (which the receiving stream is looking for) is sent.

By the way, CipherMode.ECB is more than likely an epic fail in terms of security for what you’re doing. At least use CipherMode.CBC (cipher-block chaining) which actually uses the IV and makes each block dependent on the previous one.

EDIT: Whoops, the enciphering stream is in read mode. In that case you need to make sure you read to EOF so that the CryptoStream can deal with the final block, rather than stopping after readBytes. It’s probably easier to control if you run the enciphering stream in write mode.

One more note: You cannot assume that bytes in equals bytes out. Block ciphers have a fixed block size they process, and unless you are using a cipher mode that converts the block cipher to a stream cipher, there will be padding that makes the ciphertext longer than the plaintext.