Question

My app encrypts and decrypts (or it should) an NSString (the text to be encrypted / decrypted) with another NSString (the keyword) using aes 256-Bit Encryption. When I run my project and run the encrypt method, nothing gets encrypted the textfield just clears itself. Here is the code I have:

-(void)EncryptText {
    //Declare Keyword and Text
    NSString *plainText = DataBox.text;
    NSString *keyword = Keyword.text;

    //Convert NSString to NSData
    NSData *plainData = [plainText dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

    //Encrypt the Data
    NSData *encryptedData = [plainData AESEncryptWithPassphrase:keyword];

    //Convert the NSData back to NSString
    NSString* cypherText = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:encryptedData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

    //Place the encrypted sting inside the Data Box
    NSLog(@"Cipher Text: %@", cypherText);
}

The header files can be downloaded by clicking this link: ZIP File containing AES Implementation

I have been told that I need to use Base-64 encoding of my string to get any result. If this is true, then how do I do it?

I have also been told that encryption changed in iOS 5, and my app is an iOS 5+ ONLY app. If this is true, then what do I have to do to make this encryption work on iOS 5 or where can I find another AES 256-bit implementation that will work on NSString.

Why doesn’t this code produce a result?

Answer 1

EDIT: The links below refer to an older implementation. The latest version is called RNCryptor.

Your code doesn’t use iOS’s built-in AES implementation. It has its own custom implementation. AESEncryptWithPassphrase: also incorrectly generates the key, throwing away most of the entropy in the passphrase.

On iOS, you should be using the CCCrypt*() functions for AES. You should also make sure that you understand what is happening in your encryption and decryption routines. It is very easy to write encryption code that looks correct (in that you cannot read the output by inspection), but is extremely insecure.

See Properly encrypting with AES with CommonCrypto for an explanation of the problems with the above implementation, and how to properly use AES on iOS. Note that iOS 5 now has CCKeyDerivationPBKDF available.

There is no requirement to Base-64 encode your string prior to encryption. Base-64 encoding is used in cases where you need to convert binary data into a form that can be easily sent over email or other places where control characters would be a problem. It converts 8-bit binary data in 7-bit ASCII data. That’s not necessary or useful here.

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EDIT: It is critical that you carefully read the explanation of how to use this code. It is dangerous to simply cut and paste security code and hope it works. That said, the full source to RNCryptManager is available as part of the Chapter 11 example code for iOS 5 Programming Pushing the Limits and may be helpful [EDIT: This is old code; I recommend RNCryptor now, linked at the top of the answer]. The book (which should be available next week despite what the site says) includes a much longer discussion of how to use this code, including how to improve performance and deal with very large datasets.