Cryptography in .NET

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Overview

Windows provides a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that allows us to store certificates for encryption purposes. To access the this store we had two possibilities in the unmanaged past: The CryptoAPI and the CAPICOM.

The Framework Class Library (= FCL) provies a lot of function for encryption, but the current release doesn't provide any classes for accessing the the certificate store. Fortunately a the Web Services Development Kit (WSDK) Technology Preview adds this functionality; later this will be included in the FCL itself. But in the mean time you have to download the WSDK.

Enumerating The Certificate Store

The article Using WS-Security with the Web Services Development Kit Technology Preview has this nice example:

using Microsoft.WSDK.Security.Cryptography;
using Microsoft.WSDK.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
  ...
private X509CertificateStore store;
  ...
private void Form1_Load( object sender, System.EventArgs e )
{
    store = X509CertificateStore.CurrentUserStore( X509CertificateStore.MyStore );
    store.OpenRead();
    foreach( X509Certificate cert in store.Certificates )
    {
        listBox1.Items.Add( cert.GetName() );
    }
}

Asymmetric Encryption/Signature Example

The following code is the funcionallity of my submitted example. It assumes that you have at least two certificates (with private key!) in your Personal Certificate Store.

try
{

   // GENERAL CODE TO READ THE CERTIFICATES FROM THE WINDOWS PKI INFRASTRUCTURE
   //
   // BEGINNER-TIP: Start MMC (=Microsoft Management Console) and select "Add-in/remove Snapin"
   // from the "Console" menu. Now press "Add.." button. Select "Certificates" in the list and
   // press "Add" button. You have the choise to select "My user account" or "Computer account".
   // Then press "Finish" and "Close" and start exploring the installed certificates... 
   // Each store has a "Personal" section with is BTW represented by the letters "MY".
   // Also interessting is the "Trusted root" certificates, there you see all the Certificate
   // Issuer that you trust, there is quite a lot and sometimes it's a good idea to delete
   // all of them and only add the one you need or really trust, for security resasons.
   //

   // Open private certificate store of current user

   X509CertificateStore store = 
               X509CertificateStore.CurrentUserStore( X509CertificateStore.MyStore );
   store.OpenRead();

   // Read e.g. the first two certificate
   X509Certificate sender = (X509Certificate)store.Certificates[0];
   X509Certificate receiver = (X509Certificate)store.Certificates[1];

   // Let's see who we are dealing with... - ps: not nessesary for the following code
   string sender_serial = sender.GetName();
   string receiver_serial = receiver.GetName();


   //
   // SENDER-SIDE CODE
   //

   // SENDER-SIDE: Extract own private keys and receiver's public key

   RSAParameters sender_private = sender.Key.ExportParameters( true );
   RSAParameters receiver_public = receiver.Key.ExportParameters( false );

   // SENDER-SIDE: Asymmetric encryption with receivers's public key
   RSACryptoServiceProvider rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
   rsa.ImportParameters( receiver_public ); 
   byte[] cleartext = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes("test");
   byte[] cipher = rsa.Encrypt( cleartext, false );
   
   // SENDER-SIDE: Sign the cipher with own private key
   rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
   rsa.ImportParameters( sender_private );
   byte[] signature = rsa.SignData( cipher, new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider() );

   //
   // TODO: TRANSFER DATA OVER UNSECURE CHANNEL...
   //

   // RECEIVER-SIDE: Get own private key and sender's public key

   RSAParameters receiver_private = receiver.Key.ExportParameters( true );
   RSAParameters sender_public = sender.Key.ExportParameters( false );


   // RECEIVER-SIDE: Verify signature with sender's public key
   //
   // Note: You are ONLY verifying the signature and NOT verifying the Certificate!
   // It's corresponding to the CAPICOM call SignedData.Verify( CAPICOM_VERIFY_SIGNATURE_ONLY )
   // I did not yet find out how we can use the .NET library to verify the Certificate
   // against the issuer-chain. If someone knows how to do this, and not using interop
   // and the SignedData.Verify( CAPICOM_VERIFY_SIGNATURE_AND_CERTIFICATE ), I would be
   // very, very, very happy - because this is a requirement in the software I'm developing
   // currently and if we can't do that I have to do CAPI-interop :-(
   // At the moment I think that there is no simple function call for this and this s***s.
   // Maybe it's possible to walk throw the chain-of-issuers and validate the fingerprint
   // this the public key of the issuer. But I don't know enough about that....
   // ANY HELP TO THIS POINT IS MORE THAN WELCOME
   //

   rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
   rsa.ImportParameters( sender_public );
   if( rsa.VerifyData( cipher, new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider(), signature ) )
   {
      // RECEIVER-SIDE: Asmymetirc decryption with own private key
      rsa.ImportParameters( receiver_private );
      byte[] cleartext_after_decription = rsa.Decrypt( cipher, false );

      // Check result
      Debug.Assert( ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString( cleartext ) ==
         ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString( cleartext_after_decription ),
         "Ups, the cleartext input is not equal the cleartext output..." );
   }
   else
      Debug.Assert( false, "Ups, check signature failed!" );
}
catch( Exception e )
{

   // NOTE: the following exception, that may occure during 'ExportParameters( true )'
   //
   //   System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException
   //   "Key information could not be exported from the cryptographic service 
   //    provider (CSP) for this implementation." }"
   // 
   // Can have one of the following reasons:
   // + The certificate was NOT imported with the flag "Mark the private key as exportable"
   // + The type "SSL Server Authentication(40)" and is in a CurrentUser store and not in
   //   the LocalComputer store. See certificate details in the MMC under "NetscapeCertType".
   //   IMHO: This reason is very wicked and I don't understand it!!


   Debug.Assert( false, e.ToString() );
}

Note: The X509Certificate class provides the function ExportParameters and the boolean parameter defines if the private key has to be submitted as well.

A quick note

Favorite person names for encryption examples are Alice, Bob and mean Steve. If you like to see how they are doing in .NET, search your MSDN examples for the excellent example file called PublicKey.cs!