ENCRYPTING PASSWORDS AND OTHER SENSITIVE INFORMATION IN .NET

URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229741.aspx

If you want to serialize a password in some custom object you are working with, create another member that is the encrypted bytes and serialize/deserialize that.

For simply encrypting/decrypting a file, you can use System.IO.File.Encrypt/Decrypt.

1. public static class Security
2. {
3. private static Encoding _encoding = Encoding.UTF8;
4. private static byte[] _optionalEntropy = null;
6. public static string Decrypt(this byte[] encryptedPassword)
7. {
8. if (encryptedPassword == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("encryptedPassword");
9. byte[] bytes = ProtectedData.Unprotect(encryptedPassword, _optionalEntropy, DataProtectionScope.CurrentUser);
10. return _encoding.GetString(bytes);
11. }
13. ///
14. ///
15. ///
16. ///
17. /// Empty collection if the input is null or empty.
18. public static byte[] Encrypt(this string password)
19. {
20. if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(password)) return new byte[0];
21. byte[] buffer = _encoding.GetBytes(password);
22. return ProtectedData.Protect(buffer, _optionalEntropy, DataProtectionScope.CurrentUser);
23. }
24. }