Encrypt and Decrypt text with RSA in PHP

Question

You can use phpseclib, a pure PHP RSA implementation:

<?php
include('Crypt/RSA.php');

$privatekey = file_get_contents('private.key');

$rsa = new Crypt_RSA();
$rsa->loadKey($privatekey);

$plaintext = new Math_BigInteger('aaaaaa');
echo $rsa->_exponentiate($plaintext)->toBytes();
?>

Security warning: This code snippet is vulnerable to Bleichenbacher's 1998 padding oracle attack. See this answer for better security.

class MyEncryption
{

    public $pubkey = '...public key here...';
    public $privkey = '...private key here...';

    public function encrypt($data)
    {
        if (openssl_public_encrypt($data, $encrypted, $this->pubkey))
            $data = base64_encode($encrypted);
        else
            throw new Exception('Unable to encrypt data. Perhaps it is bigger than the key size?');

        return $data;
    }

    public function decrypt($data)
    {
        if (openssl_private_decrypt(base64_decode($data), $decrypted, $this->privkey))
            $data = $decrypted;
        else
            $data = '';

        return $data;
    }
}

No application written in 2017 (or thereafter) that intends to incorporate serious cryptography should use RSA any more. There are better options for PHP public-key cryptography.

There are two big mistakes that people make when they decide to encrypt with RSA:

1. Developers choose the wrong padding mode.
2. Since RSA cannot, by itself, encrypt very long strings, developers will often break a string into small chunks and encrypt each chunk independently. Sort of like ECB mode.

The Best Alternative: sodium_crypto_box_seal() (libsodium)

$keypair = sodium_crypto_box_keypair();
$publicKey = sodium_crypto_box_publickey($keypair);
// ...
$encrypted = sodium_crypto_box_seal(
    $plaintextMessage,
    $publicKey
);
// ...
$decrypted = sodium_crypto_box_seal_open(
    $encrypted,
    $keypair
);

Simple and secure. Libsodium will be available in PHP 7.2, or through PECL for earlier versions of PHP. If you need a pure-PHP polyfill, get paragonie/sodium_compat.

Begrudgingly: Using RSA Properly

The only reason to use RSA in 2017 is, "I'm forbidden to install PECL extensions and therefore cannot use libsodium, and for some reason cannot use paragonie/sodium_compat either."

Your protocol should look something like this:

1. Generate a random AES key.
2. Encrypt your plaintext message with the AES key, using an AEAD encryption mode or, failing that, CBC then HMAC-SHA256.
3. Encrypt your AES key (step 1) with your RSA public key, using RSAES-OAEP + MGF1-SHA256
4. Concatenate your RSA-encrypted AES key (step 3) and AES-encrypted message (step 2).

Instead of implementing this yourself, check out EasyRSA.

Further reading: Doing RSA in PHP correctly.

If you are using PHP >= 7.2 consider using inbuilt sodium core extension for encrption.

It is modern and more secure. You can find more information here - http://php.net/manual/en/intro.sodium.php. and here - https://paragonie.com/book/pecl-libsodium/read/00-intro.md

Example PHP 7.2 sodium encryption class -

<?php

/**
 * Simple sodium crypto class for PHP >= 7.2
 * @author MRK
 */
class crypto {

    /**
     * 
     * @return type
     */
    static public function create_encryption_key() {
        return base64_encode(sodium_crypto_secretbox_keygen());
    }

    /**
     * Encrypt a message
     * 
     * @param string $message - message to encrypt
     * @param string $key - encryption key created using create_encryption_key()
     * @return string
     */
    static function encrypt($message, $key) {
        $key_decoded = base64_decode($key);
        $nonce = random_bytes(
                SODIUM_CRYPTO_SECRETBOX_NONCEBYTES
        );

        $cipher = base64_encode(
                $nonce .
                sodium_crypto_secretbox(
                        $message, $nonce, $key_decoded
                )
        );
        sodium_memzero($message);
        sodium_memzero($key_decoded);
        return $cipher;
    }

    /**
     * Decrypt a message
     * @param string $encrypted - message encrypted with safeEncrypt()
     * @param string $key - key used for encryption
     * @return string
     */
    static function decrypt($encrypted, $key) {
        $decoded = base64_decode($encrypted);
        $key_decoded = base64_decode($key);
        if ($decoded === false) {
            throw new Exception('Decryption error : the encoding failed');
        }
        if (mb_strlen($decoded, '8bit') < (SODIUM_CRYPTO_SECRETBOX_NONCEBYTES + SODIUM_CRYPTO_SECRETBOX_MACBYTES)) {
            throw new Exception('Decryption error : the message was truncated');
        }
        $nonce = mb_substr($decoded, 0, SODIUM_CRYPTO_SECRETBOX_NONCEBYTES, '8bit');
        $ciphertext = mb_substr($decoded, SODIUM_CRYPTO_SECRETBOX_NONCEBYTES, null, '8bit');

        $plain = sodium_crypto_secretbox_open(
                $ciphertext, $nonce, $key_decoded
        );
        if ($plain === false) {
            throw new Exception('Decryption error : the message was tampered with in transit');
        }
        sodium_memzero($ciphertext);
        sodium_memzero($key_decoded);
        return $plain;
    }

}

Sample Usage -

<?php 

$key = crypto::create_encryption_key();

$string = 'Sri Lanka is a beautiful country !';

echo $enc = crypto::encrypt($string, $key); 
echo crypto::decrypt($enc, $key);

Yes. Look at http://jerrywickey.com/test/testJerrysLibrary.php

It gives sample code examples for RSA encryption and decryption in PHP as well as RSA encryption in javascript.

If you want to encrypt text instead of just base 10 numbers, you'll also need a base to base conversion. That is convert text to a very large number. Text is really just writing in base 63. 26 lowercase letters plus 26 uppercase + 10 numerals + space character. The code for that is below also.

The $GETn parameter is a file name that holds keys for the cryption functions. If you don't figure it out, ask. I'll help.

I actually posted this whole encryption library yesterday, but Brad Larson a mod, killed it and said this kind of stuff isn't really what Stack Overflow is about. But you can still find all the code examples and the whole function library to carry out client/server encryption decryption for AJAX at the link above.

function RSAencrypt( $num, $GETn){
    if ( file_exists( 'temp/bigprimes'.hash( 'sha256', $GETn).'.php')){
        $t= explode( '>,', file_get_contents('temp/bigprimes'.hash( 'sha256', $GETn).'.php'));
        return JL_powmod( $num, $t[4], $t[10]); 
    }else{
        return false;
    }
}

function RSAdecrypt( $num, $GETn){
    if ( file_exists( 'temp/bigprimes'.hash( 'sha256', $GETn).'.php')){
        $t= explode( '>,', file_get_contents('temp/bigprimes'.hash( 'sha256', $GETn).'.php'));
        return JL_powmod( $num, $t[8], $t[10]);     
    }else{
        return false;
    }
}

function JL_powmod( $num, $pow, $mod) {
    if ( function_exists('bcpowmod')) {
        return bcpowmod( $num, $pow, $mod);
    }
    $result= '1';
    do {
        if ( !bccomp( bcmod( $pow, '2'), '1')) {
            $result = bcmod( bcmul( $result, $num), $mod);
        }
       $num = bcmod( bcpow( $num, '2'), $mod);

       $pow = bcdiv( $pow, '2');
    } while ( bccomp( $pow, '0'));
    return $result;
}

function baseToBase ($message, $fromBase, $toBase){
    $from= strlen( $fromBase);
    $b[$from]= $fromBase; 
    $to= strlen( $toBase);
    $b[$to]= $toBase; 

    $result= substr( $b[$to], 0, 1);

    $f= substr( $b[$to], 1, 1);

    $tf= digit( $from, $b[$to]);

    for ($i=strlen($message)-1; $i>=0; $i--){
        $result= badd( $result, bmul( digit( strpos( $b[$from], substr( $message, $i, 1)), $b[$to]), $f, $b[$to]), $b[$to]);
        $f= bmul($f, $tf, $b[$to]);
    }
    return $result;
} 

function digit( $from, $bto){   
    $to= strlen( $bto);
    $b[$to]= $bto; 

    $t[0]= intval( $from);
    $i= 0;
    while ( $t[$i] >= intval( $to)){
        if ( !isset( $t[$i+1])){ 
            $t[$i+1]= 0;
        }
        while ( $t[$i] >= intval( $to)){
            $t[$i]= $t[$i] - intval( $to);
            $t[$i+1]++;
        }
        $i++;
    }

    $res= '';
    for ( $i=count( $t)-1; $i>=0; $i--){ 
        $res.= substr( $b[$to], $t[$i], 1);
    }
    return $res;
}   

function badd( $n1, $n2, $nbase){
    $base= strlen( $nbase);
    $b[$base]= $nbase; 

    while ( strlen( $n1) < strlen( $n2)){
        $n1= substr( $b[$base], 0, 1) . $n1;
    }
    while ( strlen( $n1) > strlen( $n2)){
        $n2= substr( $b[$base], 0, 1) . $n2;
    }
    $n1= substr( $b[$base], 0, 1) . $n1;    
    $n2= substr( $b[$base], 0, 1) . $n2;
    $m1= array();
    for ( $i=0; $i<strlen( $n1); $i++){
        $m1[$i]= strpos( $b[$base], substr( $n1, (strlen( $n1)-$i-1), 1));
    }   
    $res= array();
    $m2= array();
    for ($i=0; $i<strlen( $n1); $i++){
        $m2[$i]= strpos( $b[$base], substr( $n2, (strlen( $n1)-$i-1), 1));
        $res[$i]= 0;
    }           
    for ($i=0; $i<strlen( $n1)  ; $i++){
        $res[$i]= $m1[$i] + $m2[$i] + $res[$i];
        if ($res[$i] >= $base){
            $res[$i]= $res[$i] - $base;
            $res[$i+1]++;
        }
    }
    $o= '';
    for ($i=0; $i<strlen( $n1); $i++){
        $o= substr( $b[$base], $res[$i], 1).$o;
    }   
    $t= false;
    $o= '';
    for ($i=strlen( $n1)-1; $i>=0; $i--){
        if ($res[$i] > 0 || $t){    
            $o.= substr( $b[$base], $res[$i], 1);
            $t= true;
        }
    }
    return $o;
}
function bmul( $n1, $n2, $nbase){
    $base= strlen( $nbase);
    $b[$base]= $nbase; 

    $m1= array();
    for ($i=0; $i<strlen( $n1); $i++){
        $m1[$i]= strpos( $b[$base], substr($n1, (strlen( $n1)-$i-1), 1));
    }   
    $m2= array();
    for ($i=0; $i<strlen( $n2); $i++){
        $m2[$i]= strpos( $b[$base], substr($n2, (strlen( $n2)-$i-1), 1));
    }           
    $res= array();
    for ($i=0; $i<strlen( $n1)+strlen( $n2)+2; $i++){
        $res[$i]= 0;
    }
    for ($i=0; $i<strlen( $n1)  ; $i++){
        for ($j=0; $j<strlen( $n2)  ; $j++){
            $res[$i+$j]= ($m1[$i] * $m2[$j]) + $res[$i+$j];
            while ( $res[$i+$j] >= $base){
                $res[$i+$j]= $res[$i+$j] - $base;
                $res[$i+$j+1]++;
            }
        }
    }
    $t= false;
    $o= '';
    for ($i=count( $res)-1; $i>=0; $i--){
        if ($res[$i]>0 || $t){  
            $o.= substr( $b[$base], $res[$i], 1);
            $t= true;
        }
    }
    return $o;
}

I have difficulty in decrypting a long string that is encrypted in python. Here is the python encryption function:

def RSA_encrypt(public_key, msg, chunk_size=214):
    """
    Encrypt the message by the provided RSA public key.

    :param public_key: RSA public key in PEM format.
    :type public_key: binary
    :param msg: message that to be encrypted
    :type msg: string
    :param chunk_size: the chunk size used for PKCS1_OAEP decryption, it is determined by \
    the private key length used in bytes - 42 bytes.
    :type chunk_size: int
    :return: Base 64 encryption of the encrypted message
    :rtype: binray
    """
    rsa_key = RSA.importKey(public_key)
    rsa_key = PKCS1_OAEP.new(rsa_key)

    encrypted = b''
    offset = 0
    end_loop = False

    while not end_loop:
        chunk = msg[offset:offset + chunk_size]

        if len(chunk) % chunk_size != 0:
            chunk += " " * (chunk_size - len(chunk))
            end_loop = True

        encrypted += rsa_key.encrypt(chunk.encode())
        offset += chunk_size

    return base64.b64encode(encrypted)

The decryption in PHP:

/**
 * @param  base64_encoded string holds the encrypted message.
 * @param  Resource your private key loaded using openssl_pkey_get_private
 * @param  integer Chunking by bytes to feed to the decryptor algorithm.
 * @return String decrypted message.
 */
public function RSADecyrpt($encrypted_msg, $ppk, $chunk_size=256){
    if(is_null($ppk))
        throw new Exception("Returned message is encrypted while you did not provide private key!");
    $encrypted_msg = base64_decode($encrypted_msg);

    $offset = 0;
    $chunk_size = 256;

    $decrypted = "";
    while($offset < strlen($encrypted_msg)){
        $decrypted_chunk = "";
        $chunk = substr($encrypted_msg, $offset, $chunk_size);

        if(openssl_private_decrypt($chunk, $decrypted_chunk, $ppk, OPENSSL_PKCS1_OAEP_PADDING))
            $decrypted .= $decrypted_chunk;
        else 
            throw new exception("Problem decrypting the message");
        $offset += $chunk_size;
    }
    return $decrypted;
}