What is the best password encryption & decryption library to use with Perl? [closed]

Question

I am writing a perl script that manipulates password protected zip files. Consequently I need to store & retrieve passwords to do this. I have three options for storing the password:

1. Store in plain text. Before you jump in, I have pretty much ruled out this option.
2. Use a simple password munger to prevent casual/accidental access (even by the DBAs)
3. Use a proper encryption/decryption library, such as Blowfish or AES.

Whatever I choose must run in Perl, under Windows and be easy to use.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

There are a few Perl encryption packages that run on Windows, you can download the PPMs with ActivePerl package manager.

You can also use the pure Perl version of those modules (look for the name ending in _PP).

I found these modules on CPAN:

• Crypt::Blowfish
• Crypt::Rijndael

Answer 2

The main problem with approach 3 is that, where do you store the key to the file that does contain the passwords? You could use Base64 for approach 2 but that very easy to "decrypt".