encryption - PHP AES encrypt / decrypt

Question

I found an example for en/decoding strings in PHP. At first it looks very good but it wont work :-(

Does anyone know what the problem is?

$Pass = "Passwort";
$Clear = "Klartext";

$crypted = fnEncrypt($Clear, $Pass);
echo "Encrypted: ".$crypted."</br>";

$newClear = fnDecrypt($crypted, $Pass);
echo "Decrypted: ".$newClear."</br>";

function fnEncrypt($sValue, $sSecretKey) {
    return trim(base64_encode(mcrypt_encrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, $sSecretKey, $sDecrypted, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB, mcrypt_create_iv(mcrypt_get_iv_size(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB), MCRYPT_RAND))));
}

function fnDecrypt($sValue, $sSecretKey) {
    return trim(mcrypt_decrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, $sSecretKey, base64_decode($sEncrypted), MCRYPT_MODE_ECB, mcrypt_create_iv(mcrypt_get_iv_size(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB), MCRYPT_RAND)));
}

The result is:

Encrypted: boKRNTYYNp7AiOvY1CidqsAn9wX4ufz/D9XrpjAOPk8=

Decrypted: —?(?á ^ y?~F'??ó–í ?e2á_B‰?—

Answer 1

Please use an existing secure PHP encryption library

It's generally a bad idea to write your own cryptography unless you have experience breaking other peoples' cryptography implementations.

None of the examples here authenticate the ciphertext, which leaves them vulnerable to bit-rewriting attacks.

If you can install PECL extensions, libsodium is even better

<?php
// PECL libsodium 0.2.1 and newer

/**
 * Encrypt a message
 * 
 * @param string $message - message to encrypt
 * @param string $key - encryption key
 * @return string
 */
function safeEncrypt($message, $key)
{
    $nonce = Sodium
andombytes_buf(
        SodiumCRYPTO_SECRETBOX_NONCEBYTES
    );

    return base64_encode(
        $nonce.
        Sodiumcrypto_secretbox(
            $message,
            $nonce,
            $key
        )
    );
}

/**
 * Decrypt a message
 * 
 * @param string $encrypted - message encrypted with safeEncrypt()
 * @param string $key - encryption key
 * @return string
 */
function safeDecrypt($encrypted, $key)
{   
    $decoded = base64_decode($encrypted);
    $nonce = mb_substr($decoded, 0, SodiumCRYPTO_SECRETBOX_NONCEBYTES, '8bit');
    $ciphertext = mb_substr($decoded, SodiumCRYPTO_SECRETBOX_NONCEBYTES, null, '8bit');

    return Sodiumcrypto_secretbox_open(
        $ciphertext,
        $nonce,
        $key
    );
}    

Then to test it out:

<?php
// This refers to the previous code block.
require "safeCrypto.php"; 

// Do this once then store it somehow:
$key = Sodium
andombytes_buf(SodiumCRYPTO_SECRETBOX_KEYBYTES);
$message = 'We are all living in a yellow submarine';

$ciphertext = safeEncrypt($message, $key);
$plaintext = safeDecrypt($ciphertext, $key);

var_dump($ciphertext);
var_dump($plaintext);

This can be used in any situation where you are passing data to the client (e.g. encrypted cookies for sessions without server-side storage, encrypted URL parameters, etc.) with a reasonably high degree of certainty that the end user cannot decipher or reliably tamper with it.

Since libsodium is cross-platform, this also makes it easier to communicate with PHP from, e.g. Java applets or native mobile apps.

---

Note: If you specifically need to add encrypted cookies powered by libsodium to your app, my employer Paragon Initiative Enterprises is developing a library called Halite that does all of this for you.