2
I'm using openssl to encrypt text with a vendor. I have to send test encrypted text and provide them with what they need to decrypt the text on their end. When I encrypt text and then try to decrypt it in Notepad++ using Nppcrypt, it asks for options that I don't know were used when running openssl, so I can never decrypt the text.
What I basically run is something like:
echo "test text" | openssl aes-256-cbc -a -k mypass -nosalt
and then I cut and paste the output in Notepad++ and try to decrypt. But it asks options I don't know and as such, the decrypt fails. What other settings should I set in OpenSSL so that I can a.) decrypt in Notepad++ and share the info with my vendor?
Tensigh
Posted 2015-12-03T07:15:45.363
Reputation: 327
You're rolling your own crypto. Why not use a more mainstream encryption, such as Enigmail with Thunderbird?
– StackzOfZtuff – 2015-12-03T15:08:47.733What does it ask you? I guess it's related to password-based key derivation? – SEJPM – 2015-12-03T21:54:16.370
@SEJPM, there are a few choices that I know of; encoding (base 64), cipher (aes-128-cbc), salt/nosalt. Under key derivation there's PBKDF2, bcrypt, etc, authentication (add hmac?) and iv (random, key-derivation, zero). When I run the command in openssl to encrypt, I choose a password, cipher and no salt. But these other options that appear in Notepad++ I can't set when I run the command in openssl to encrypt. – Tensigh – 2015-12-03T22:55:22.393
@StackzOfZtuff, that won't work for us. We have to send files to a vendor with some rows encrypted and some rows in plain text. This is part of a software package that's being developed. Besides, we're using aes-128, how does this mean we're rolling our own crypto? – Tensigh – 2015-12-03T22:56:31.990
@Tensigh: "Rolling your own crypto" doesn't just mean the algorithms, but also how they're used – the cipher itself (some think DES is strong), cipher mode (CBC is alright, but many foolishly choose ECB), key derivation, even final framing (
openssl aesdoesn't just output raw encrypted data, but in a special format)... – user1686 – 2015-12-04T08:15:38.450