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Using AES encryption in C#

If you just want to use the built-in crypto provider RijndaelManaged, check out the following help article (it also has a simple code sample):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.rijndaelmanaged.aspx

And just in case you need the sample in a hurry, here it is in all its plagiarized glory:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;

namespace RijndaelManaged_Example
{
    class RijndaelExample
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            try
            {

                string original = "Here is some data to encrypt!";

                // Create a new instance of the RijndaelManaged 
                // class.  This generates a new key and initialization  
                // vector (IV). 
                using (RijndaelManaged myRijndael = new RijndaelManaged())
                {

                    myRijndael.GenerateKey();
                    myRijndael.GenerateIV();
                    // Encrypt the string to an array of bytes. 
                    byte[] encrypted = EncryptStringToBytes(original, myRijndael.Key, myRijndael.IV);

                    // Decrypt the bytes to a string. 
                    string roundtrip = DecryptStringFromBytes(encrypted, myRijndael.Key, myRijndael.IV);

                    //Display the original data and the decrypted data.
                    Console.WriteLine("Original:   {0}", original);
                    Console.WriteLine("Round Trip: {0}", roundtrip);
                }

            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error: {0}", e.Message);
            }
        }
        static byte[] EncryptStringToBytes(string plainText, byte[] Key, byte[] IV)
        {
            // Check arguments. 
            if (plainText == null || plainText.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("plainText");
            if (Key == null || Key.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
            if (IV == null || IV.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("IV");
            byte[] encrypted;
            // Create an RijndaelManaged object 
            // with the specified key and IV. 
            using (RijndaelManaged rijAlg = new RijndaelManaged())
            {
                rijAlg.Key = Key;
                rijAlg.IV = IV;

                // Create a decryptor to perform the stream transform.
                ICryptoTransform encryptor = rijAlg.CreateEncryptor(rijAlg.Key, rijAlg.IV);

                // Create the streams used for encryption. 
                using (MemoryStream msEncrypt = new MemoryStream())
                {
                    using (CryptoStream csEncrypt = new CryptoStream(msEncrypt, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
                    {
                        using (StreamWriter swEncrypt = new StreamWriter(csEncrypt))
                        {

                            //Write all data to the stream.
                            swEncrypt.Write(plainText);
                        }
                        encrypted = msEncrypt.ToArray();
                    }
                }
            }


            // Return the encrypted bytes from the memory stream. 
            return encrypted;

        }

        static string DecryptStringFromBytes(byte[] cipherText, byte[] Key, byte[] IV)
        {
            // Check arguments. 
            if (cipherText == null || cipherText.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("cipherText");
            if (Key == null || Key.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
            if (IV == null || IV.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("IV");

            // Declare the string used to hold 
            // the decrypted text. 
            string plaintext = null;

            // Create an RijndaelManaged object 
            // with the specified key and IV. 
            using (RijndaelManaged rijAlg = new RijndaelManaged())
            {
                rijAlg.Key = Key;
                rijAlg.IV = IV;

                // Create a decrytor to perform the stream transform.
                ICryptoTransform decryptor = rijAlg.CreateDecryptor(rijAlg.Key, rijAlg.IV);

                // Create the streams used for decryption. 
                using (MemoryStream msDecrypt = new MemoryStream(cipherText))
                {
                    using (CryptoStream csDecrypt = new CryptoStream(msDecrypt, decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read))
                    {
                        using (StreamReader srDecrypt = new StreamReader(csDecrypt))
                        {

                            // Read the decrypted bytes from the decrypting stream 
                            // and place them in a string.
                            plaintext = srDecrypt.ReadToEnd();
                        }
                    }
                }

            }

            return plaintext;

        }
    }
}

I've recently had to bump up against this again in my own project - and wanted to share the somewhat simpler code that I've been using, as this question and series of answers kept coming up in my searches.

I'm not going to get into the security concerns around how often to update things like your Salt and Initialization Vector - that's a topic for a security forum, and there are some great resources out there to look at. This is simply a block of code to implement AesManaged in C#.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

namespace Your.Namespace.Security {
    public static class Cryptography {
        #region Settings

        private static int _iterations = 2;
        private static int _keySize = 256;

        private static string _hash     = "SHA1";
        private static string _salt     = "aselrias38490a32"; // Random
        private static string _vector   = "8947az34awl34kjq"; // Random

        #endregion

        public static string Encrypt(string value, string password) {
            return Encrypt<AesManaged>(value, password);
        }
        public static string Encrypt<T>(string value, string password) 
                where T : SymmetricAlgorithm, new() {
            byte[] vectorBytes = GetBytes<ASCIIEncoding>(_vector);
            byte[] saltBytes = GetBytes<ASCIIEncoding>(_salt);
            byte[] valueBytes = GetBytes<UTF8Encoding>(value);

            byte[] encrypted;
            using (T cipher = new T()) {
                PasswordDeriveBytes _passwordBytes = 
                    new PasswordDeriveBytes(password, saltBytes, _hash, _iterations);
                byte[] keyBytes = _passwordBytes.GetBytes(_keySize / 8);

                cipher.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;

                using (ICryptoTransform encryptor = cipher.CreateEncryptor(keyBytes, vectorBytes)) {
                    using (MemoryStream to = new MemoryStream()) {
                        using (CryptoStream writer = new CryptoStream(to, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write)) {
                            writer.Write(valueBytes, 0, valueBytes.Length);
                            writer.FlushFinalBlock();
                            encrypted = to.ToArray();
                        }
                    }
                }
                cipher.Clear();
            }
            return Convert.ToBase64String(encrypted);
        }

        public static string Decrypt(string value, string password) {
            return Decrypt<AesManaged>(value, password);
        }
        public static string Decrypt<T>(string value, string password) where T : SymmetricAlgorithm, new() {
            byte[] vectorBytes = GetBytes<ASCIIEncoding>(_vector);
            byte[] saltBytes = GetBytes<ASCIIEncoding>(_salt);
            byte[] valueBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(value);

            byte[] decrypted;
            int decryptedByteCount = 0;

            using (T cipher = new T()) {
                PasswordDeriveBytes _passwordBytes = new PasswordDeriveBytes(password, saltBytes, _hash, _iterations);
                byte[] keyBytes = _passwordBytes.GetBytes(_keySize / 8);

                cipher.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;

                try {
                    using (ICryptoTransform decryptor = cipher.CreateDecryptor(keyBytes, vectorBytes)) {
                        using (MemoryStream from = new MemoryStream(valueBytes)) {
                            using (CryptoStream reader = new CryptoStream(from, decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read)) {
                                decrypted = new byte[valueBytes.Length];
                                decryptedByteCount = reader.Read(decrypted, 0, decrypted.Length);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                } catch (Exception ex) {
                    return String.Empty;
                }

                cipher.Clear();
            }
            return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(decrypted, 0, decryptedByteCount);
        }

    }
}

The code is very simple to use. It literally just requires the following:

string encrypted = Cryptography.Encrypt(data, "testpass");
string decrypted = Cryptography.Decrypt(encrypted, "testpass");

By default, the implementation uses AesManaged - but you could actually also insert any other SymmetricAlgorithm. A list of the available SymmetricAlgorithm inheritors for .NET 4.5 can be found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.symmetricalgorithm.aspx

As of the time of this post, the current list includes:

  • AesManaged
  • RijndaelManaged
  • DESCryptoServiceProvider
  • RC2CryptoServiceProvider
  • TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider

To use RijndaelManaged with the code above, as an example, you would use:

string encrypted = Cryptography.Encrypt<RijndaelManaged>(dataToEncrypt, password);
string decrypted = Cryptography.Decrypt<RijndaelManaged>(encrypted, password);

I hope this is helpful to someone out there.


Look at sample in here..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.rijndaelmanaged(v=VS.100).aspx#Y2262

The example on MSDN does not run normally (an error occurs) because there is no initial value of Initial Vector(iv) and Key. I add 2 line code and now work normally.

More details see below:

using System.Windows.Forms;
using System;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;

namespace AES_TESTER
{
   public partial class Form1 : Form
   {
       public Form1()
       {
          InitializeComponent();
       }

       private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
       {
          try
          {

            string original = "Here is some data to encrypt!";
            MessageBox.Show("Original:   " + original);

            // Create a new instance of the RijndaelManaged
            // class.  This generates a new key and initialization 
            // vector (IV).
            using (RijndaelManaged myRijndael = new RijndaelManaged())
            {
                 myRijndael.GenerateKey();
                 myRijndael.GenerateIV();

                // Encrypt the string to an array of bytes.
                byte[] encrypted = EncryptStringToBytes(original, myRijndael.Key, myRijndael.IV);

                StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder();
                foreach (byte item in encrypted)
                {
                   s.Append(item.ToString("X2") + " ");
                }
                MessageBox.Show("Encrypted:   " + s);

                // Decrypt the bytes to a string.
                string decrypted = DecryptStringFromBytes(encrypted, myRijndael.Key, myRijndael.IV);

                //Display the original data and the decrypted data.
                MessageBox.Show("Decrypted:    " + decrypted);
            }

        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Error: {0}", ex.Message);
        }
    }

    static byte[] EncryptStringToBytes(string plainText, byte[] Key, byte[] IV)
    {
        // Check arguments.
        if (plainText == null || plainText.Length <= 0)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("plainText");
        if (Key == null || Key.Length <= 0)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
        if (IV == null || IV.Length <= 0)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
        byte[] encrypted;
        // Create an RijndaelManaged object
        // with the specified key and IV.
        using (RijndaelManaged rijAlg = new RijndaelManaged())
        {
            rijAlg.Key = Key;
            rijAlg.IV = IV;
            rijAlg.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
            rijAlg.Padding = PaddingMode.Zeros;

            // Create a decrytor to perform the stream transform.
            ICryptoTransform encryptor = rijAlg.CreateEncryptor(rijAlg.Key, rijAlg.IV);

            // Create the streams used for encryption.
            using (MemoryStream msEncrypt = new MemoryStream())
            {
                using (CryptoStream csEncrypt = new CryptoStream(msEncrypt, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
                {
                    using (StreamWriter swEncrypt = new StreamWriter(csEncrypt))
                    {

                        //Write all data to the stream.
                        swEncrypt.Write(plainText);
                    }
                    encrypted = msEncrypt.ToArray();
                }
            }
        }


        // Return the encrypted bytes from the memory stream.
        return encrypted;

    }

    static string DecryptStringFromBytes(byte[] cipherText, byte[] Key, byte[] IV)
    {
        // Check arguments.
        if (cipherText == null || cipherText.Length <= 0)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("cipherText");
        if (Key == null || Key.Length <= 0)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
        if (IV == null || IV.Length <= 0)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");

        // Declare the string used to hold
        // the decrypted text.
        string plaintext = null;

        // Create an RijndaelManaged object
        // with the specified key and IV.
        using (RijndaelManaged rijAlg = new RijndaelManaged())
        {
            rijAlg.Key = Key;
            rijAlg.IV = IV;
            rijAlg.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
            rijAlg.Padding = PaddingMode.Zeros;

            // Create a decrytor to perform the stream transform.
            ICryptoTransform decryptor = rijAlg.CreateDecryptor(rijAlg.Key, rijAlg.IV);

            // Create the streams used for decryption.
            using (MemoryStream msDecrypt = new MemoryStream(cipherText))
            {
                using (CryptoStream csDecrypt = new CryptoStream(msDecrypt, decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read))
                {
                    using (StreamReader srDecrypt = new StreamReader(csDecrypt))
                    {

                        // Read the decrypted bytes from the decrypting stream
                        // and place them in a string.
                        plaintext = srDecrypt.ReadToEnd();
                    }
                }
            }

        }

        return plaintext;
     }
   }
}

Using AES or implementing AES? To use AES, there is the System.Security.Cryptography.RijndaelManaged class.


For a more complete example that performs key derivation in addition to the AES encryption, see the answer and links posted in Getting AES encryption to work across Javascript and C#.

EDIT
a side note: Javascript Cryptography considered harmful. Worth the read.