Question

I’m trying to figure out how to encrypt / decrypt a string in VB.Net.

I followed the example given here and wrote the following code (below). There’s a text box, an “encrypt” button, and a “decrypt” button. The idea is to type something into the text box (“like ‘hello world'”), click “encrypt”, and see the encrypted version appear in the text box. Clicking “decrypt” should then take you back to the original string.

But when I try to encrypt I get an error when I try to “FlushFinalBlock”. The error is: “Length of the data to encrypt is invalid”.

The “decrypt” part is a total shot in the dark, as the example quoted above only deals with encryption, not decryption. I’m sure it’s wrong, but since I can’t get “encrypt” to work I haven’t tested it yet.

Can anyone tell me why this doesn’t work?

Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Security.Cryptography

Public Class Form1

  Private cryptObj As RijndaelManaged
  Private KEY_128 As Byte() = {42, 1, 52, 67, 231, 13, 94, 101, 123, 6, 0, 12, 32, 91, 4, 111, 31, 70, 21, 141, 123, 142, 234, 82, 95, 129, 187, 162, 12, 55, 98, 23}
  Private IV_128 As Byte() = {234, 12, 52, 44, 214, 222, 200, 109, 2, 98, 45, 76, 88, 53, 23, 78}
  Private enc As System.Text.UTF8Encoding = New System.Text.UTF8Encoding()

  Private Sub btnEncrypt_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnEncrypt.Click
    Dim sPlainText As String = Me.TextBox1.Text
    If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(sPlainText) Then
      Dim bPlainText As Byte() = Me.enc.GetBytes(Me.TextBox1.Text)
      Dim ms As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
      Dim cs As CryptoStream = New CryptoStream(ms, cryptObj.CreateEncryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write)
      cs.Write(bPlainText, 0, sPlainText.Length)
      cs.FlushFinalBlock()
      Me.TextBox1.Text = Me.enc.GetString(ms.ToArray())
    End If
  End Sub

  Private Sub btnDecrypt_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnDecrypt.Click
    Dim sCipherText = Me.TextBox1.Text
    Dim ms As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
    Dim cs As CryptoStream = New CryptoStream(ms, cryptObj.CreateDecryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Read)
    cs.Read(Me.enc.GetBytes(sCipherText), 0, sCipherText.Length)
    Me.TextBox1.Text = Me.enc.GetString(ms.ToArray())
  End Sub

  Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
    Me.cryptObj = New RijndaelManaged()
    Me.cryptObj.BlockSize = 128
    Me.cryptObj.KeySize = 128
    Me.cryptObj.Mode = CipherMode.ECB
    Me.cryptObj.Padding = PaddingMode.None
    Me.cryptObj.Key = KEY_128
    Me.cryptObj.IV = IV_128
  End Sub

End Class

Answer 1

Ultimately I found the answer here:

http://www.obviex.com/samples/Encryption.aspx

His example seems a little over-complicated. I’m sure it represents a more general and flexible case, but I was able to do away with the “saltPhrase”, the “initVector”, and the use of “PasswordDeriveBytes”, which apparently is deprecated anyway, but I also avoided its nastily named replacement: Rfc2898DeriveBytes.

The following lets you enter a string of any length, encrypt it, and re-decrypt it.

Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Security.Cryptography

Public Class Form1

  Private enc As System.Text.UTF8Encoding
  Private encryptor As ICryptoTransform
  Private decryptor As ICryptoTransform

  Private Sub btnEncrypt_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnEncrypt.Click
    Dim sPlainText As String = Me.TextBox1.Text
    If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(sPlainText) Then
      Dim memoryStream As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
      Dim cryptoStream As CryptoStream = New CryptoStream(memoryStream, Me.encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write)
      cryptoStream.Write(Me.enc.GetBytes(sPlainText), 0, sPlainText.Length)
      cryptoStream.FlushFinalBlock()
      Me.TextBox1.Text = Convert.ToBase64String(memoryStream.ToArray())
      memoryStream.Close()
      cryptoStream.Close()
    End If
  End Sub

  Private Sub btnDecrypt_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnDecrypt.Click
    Dim cypherTextBytes As Byte() = Convert.FromBase64String(Me.TextBox1.Text)
    Dim memoryStream As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream(cypherTextBytes)
    Dim cryptoStream As CryptoStream = New CryptoStream(memoryStream, Me.decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read)
    Dim plainTextBytes(cypherTextBytes.Length) As Byte
    Dim decryptedByteCount As Integer = cryptoStream.Read(plainTextBytes, 0, plainTextBytes.Length)
    memoryStream.Close()
    cryptoStream.Close()
    Me.TextBox1.Text = Me.enc.GetString(plainTextBytes, 0, decryptedByteCount)
  End Sub

  Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
    Dim KEY_128 As Byte() = {42, 1, 52, 67, 231, 13, 94, 101, 123, 6, 0, 12, 32, 91, 4, 111, 31, 70, 21, 141, 123, 142, 234, 82, 95, 129, 187, 162, 12, 55, 98, 23}
    Dim IV_128 As Byte() = {234, 12, 52, 44, 214, 222, 200, 109, 2, 98, 45, 76, 88, 53, 23, 78}
    Dim symmetricKey As RijndaelManaged = New RijndaelManaged()
    symmetricKey.Mode = CipherMode.CBC

    Me.enc = New System.Text.UTF8Encoding
    Me.encryptor = symmetricKey.CreateEncryptor(KEY_128, IV_128)
    Me.decryptor = symmetricKey.CreateDecryptor(KEY_128, IV_128)
  End Sub

End Class