How Do I...Encrypt and Decrypt a file?
The CryptoStream class in the System.Security.Cryptography namespace is used
to easily define cryptographic transforms on any data stream. The constructor is defined as
the following: CryptoStream (Stream argument, ICryptoTransform
transform, CryptoStreamMode mode).
Stream argument - Defines the stream on which the cryptographic transform
is to be performed. Any stream that derives from System.IO.Stream can be plugged in
here. For example, pass in an instance of System.IO.FileStream to perform a
cryptographic transform on a file. Because CryptoStream derives from Stream,
it is possible to use CryptoStream to define cryptographic transforms on other
cryptographic streams. This makes it possible to chain objects that implement
CryptoStream together, for example encrypting a file and computing the hash for the
encryption in a single operation.
ICrypto Transformtransform - Defines the cryptographic transform that is
to be performed on the stream. Because every class that derives from HashAlgorithm
implements the ICryptoTransform interface, an instance of a hash algorithm can be
passed in here to take the hash of a stream. All symmetric encryption or decryption algorithms
that derive from the SymmetricAlgorithm class have CreateEncryptor() and
CreateDecryptor() functions that return an instance of an ICryptoTransform
implementation. To define a TripleDES encryption on a given stream, call the
CreateEncryptor() function on an instance of a TripleDES implementation and
pass the result into the CryptoStream constructor. Generally, any class that
implements ICryptoTransform can be passed into the CryptoStream constructor.
CryptoStreamMode mode - Defines whether you are reading from or writing
to the stream. To write to a CryptoStream you must pass CryptoStreamMode.Write
into the CryptoStream constructor. To read from the stream, CryptoStreamMode.Read
must be passed into the constructor.
The CryptoStream class contains the standard stream member functions to either read
a byte array from the stream or write a byte array to the stream. The CryptoStream
class handles the buffering internally when reading from or writing to the stream.
Application code needs only to provide the byte buffer and call the appropriate read or write
method on the stream.
The following sample code shows the creation of a CryptoStream to encrypt a file
using the DES algorithm. First, the FileStream that will contain the encrypted
file is created. Then, an instance of a DES implementation is created. If an instance
of a symmetric or asymmetric algorithm is created without explicit constructor arguments,
a random key (or public or private key pair) is generated and default properties are set that
cover most encryption or decryption scenarios. A DES encryptor object is created on the
DES instance. Next, a CryptoStream is created by passing the FileStream
instance and the DES encryptor into the CryptoStream constructor; the stream
is set to write mode. Finally, we write a byte array of plain text to the stream and close
the stream. The result is a file named "EncryptedFile.txt" which contains the DES
encryption of bytearrayinput.
FileStream fs = new FileStream("EncryptedFile.txt",FileMode.Create,FileAccess.Write);
DESCryptoServiceProvider des = new DESCryptoServiceProvider();
ICryptoTransform desencrypt = des.CreateEncryptor();
CryptoStream cryptostream = new CryptoStream(fs,desencrypt,CryptoStreamMode.Write);
cryptostream.Write(bytearrayinput,0,bytearrayinput.Length);
cryptostream.Close();
C#
Example
VB fileencrypt.exe
Microsoft .NET Framework SDK QuickStart Tutorials Version 2.0
Copyright � 2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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