Changing from cipher to cipheriv

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If you have upgraded your version of node.js recently to a version >= 8.9.0 and you are encrypting some data with the standard crypto library you might have noticed the warning ⚠️:

Warning: Use Cipheriv for counter mode of aes-256-ctr

What changed?

Nothing changed in the functionality of the cipher function, Node recently went through a few security enhancements recently and this message is just to inform you that you may not have as tight encryption on your data as you first thought. when using the createCipher function there is a bit of code that checks if you are using aesxxx-ctr or aesxxx-gcm to encrypt data and displays a warning here

What do I need to do?

Technically nothing. ☕️ But... if you are using ctr encryption without a random IV then the values you are encrypting are with really weak encryption and if you are trying to use encryption I guess you don't want weak encryption.

What should I do?

Depending on your use case, tighten up your encryption 👮‍ by using createCipheriv instead of createCipher as the warning message suggests, this involves as the function name suggests using an IV. You can also change the type of encryption to another block cipher mode of operation but I would definately read up on it before you decide. The easiest, safest option would be to use a random IV.

What is an IV?

An IV is an ancryonmn for a Initialisation Vector which is a unique value used during encryption for each value. If a key is used without an IV then it's possible (but quite difficult) to figure out a common way that each value is encrypted as all data would have been encrypted with exact same way. An IV provides a way to randomise each encryption, basically a salt that is stored with the data.

The downsides

One major downside is the encrypted string can't be searched. If encrypted with a key only the search term can be encrypted, with a unique iv the value would need to be retrieved before it can be encrypted and there is no way to find that value.

Processing power / time. This method of encryption is asynchronous but with an IV the time for encrytion takes longer.

How do I do it?

It's not too difficult to change your code to add an IV, and will add a

The following variables are used in the example below, you might have a different input or output encoding and that would change the format of the key. The input encoding of utf8 means that I can store the key as an environment variable to avoid checking it in to source control.

const algorithm = 'aes-256-ctr';
const key = process.env.KEY || 'b2df428b9929d3ace7c598bbf4e496b2';
const inputEncoding = 'utf8';
const outputEncoding = 'hex';

Encryption with key only.

The following code will cause the warning above to appear using the createCipher function

Key only Encryption
/**
 * Encrypt function using only the key.
 * @param {string} value to encrypt
 */
module.exports.encrypt = value => {
    const cipher = createCipher(algorithm, key);
    let crypted = cipher.update(value, inputEncoding, outputEncoding);
    crypted += cipher.final(outputEncoding);
    return crypted;
}
Key only Decryption
/**
 * Decrypt function using only the key
 * @param {string} value to decrypt
 */
module.exports.decrypt = value => {
    const decipher = createDecipher(algorithm, key);
    let dec = decipher.update(value, outputEncoding, inputEncoding);
    dec += decipher.final(inputEncoding);
    return dec;
}

Encryption with key and IV

A new random IV is created on each encryption and stored with the encrypted valud so it can be decrypted later. The key you use for the the algorithm aes-256-ctr must be 32 characters long and the IV must be a buffer of length 16. Note: Other alorithms have different ways of encrypting!

Key and IV Encryption

The IV will be stored with the value <IV value>:<encrypted value>

/**
 * Encrypt using an initialisation vector
 * @param {string} value to encrypt
 */
module.exports.encryptIv = value => {
    const iv = new Buffer(randomBytes(16));
    const cipher = createCipheriv(algorithm, key, iv);
    let crypted = cipher.update(value, inputEncoding, outputEncoding);
    crypted += cipher.final(outputEncoding);
    return `${iv.toString('hex')}:${crypted.toString()}`;
}
Key and IV decryption

To decrypt, split up the IV stored to the left of the : and decrypt the value to the right of the : with the IV

/**
 * Decrypt using an initialisation vector
 * @param {string} value value to decrypt
 */
module.exports.decryptIv  = value => {
    const textParts = value.split(':');

    //extract the IV from the first half of the value
    const IV = new Buffer(textParts.shift(), outputEncoding);

    //extract the encrypted text without the IV
    const encryptedText = new Buffer(textParts.join(':'), outputEncoding);

    //decipher the string
    const decipher = createDecipheriv(algorithm,key, IV);
    let decrypted = decipher.update(encryptedText,  outputEncoding, inputEncoding);
    decrypted += decipher.final(inputEncoding);
    return decrypted.toString();
}

You can find the code with tests in a repo here: https://github.com/peterjgrainger/crypto-example

I hope you found this useful 😀

© Peter Grainger.RSS