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I have two programs that need to work together encrypting and decrypting text. One, which is in C# and runs in .NET, has a simple encryption and decryption scheme. The other, which cannot run in .NET, runs in Win32 and is written in C/C++. The Win32 piece needs to encrypt data so that the .NET piece can decrypt it. I have implemented the both the .NET code and the Win32 piece using the sample code provided by Microsoft, and they work fine encrypting and decrypting data by themselves. However, whenever I try to encrypt data from Win32, the .NET is unable to decrypt it, throwing an exception as "Bad data." I have written the .NET piece using the TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider class, and the Win32 using the CryptoAPI. I am not certain just what I need to do to get equivalent results. The .NET encryption code is simple and straightforward, but I am not certain just what the "magic" is underneath:

TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider _desProvider = new TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider();
//bytes for key and initialization vector
byte[] keyBytes;
byte[] vectorBytes;

FileStream fStream = File.Open(locationOfFile, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);

CryptoStream cStream = new CryptoStream(fStream,
    _desProvider.CreateEncryptor(keyBytes, vectorBytes),
    CryptoStreamMode.Write);

// Create a StreamWriter using the CryptoStream.
BinaryWriter bWriter = new BinaryWriter(cStream);
//write out encrypted data
byte[] rawData;
bWriter.Write(rawData);

What would be the equivalent code using the Crypto API? Do I need to call CryptDeriveKey(), create a hash code with the key bytes, put something into the name of the provider, import a key, etc.?

I've tried something like:
//the contents of keyBytes and vectorBytes are identical to the C# code
byte[] keyBytes;
byte[] vectorBytes;
	if(CryptAcquireContext(&hProv, NULL, MS_ENHANCED_PROV, PROV_RSA_FULL, CRYPT_VERIFYCONTEXT))
	{
		HCRYPTKEY hKey = NULL;
                //what do I do here?
		{
			//set the IV.
			if(CryptSetKeyParam(hKey, KP_IV, vectorbytes, 0))
			{
				//encrypt the data
				BYTE filebytes[2048];
				DWORD cbEncrypted, dwSize;
				if (CryptEncrypt(hKey, NULL, TRUE, 0, filebytes, &cbEncrypted, dwSize))
				{
				}
			}
			CryptDestroyKey(hKey);
			hKey = NULL;
		}
         }

I've looked at a couple of Microsoft sites for sample code (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa382358(VS.85).aspx[^]), but I haven't been able to get it to work with the .NET decryption. What am I doing wrong?
Posted
Updated 25-May-10 5:01am
v2
Comments
OriginalGriff 25-May-10 11:05am    
I wouldn't expect them to call each other - just to exist in a separate DLL. You can then access the encrypt from win32, and the decrypt from .NET
Member 3966780 25-May-10 13:55pm    
Again, that would be a great idea, but for reasons I won't bore you with here that unfortunately is not an option here.

1 solution

I would be tempted to take the safest route: write an encrypt / decyrpt method pair in C++ and contain it in a DLL. You can then access the matched routines from either managed or unmanaged code, knowing they will work.
 
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Comments
Member 3966780 25-May-10 11:02am    
Alas, that would be a great idea, but I am unable to go down that path. The two methods have to be separate and cannot call each other.

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