Crypt::CBC Encryption with Salted Keys

A tutorial Perl example is provided to show how to use Crypt::CBC to perform encryption with a passphrase and a salt, which will be used to derive the secret key and the IV.

So far, we have learned 2 options to use the Crypt::CBC module: Literal Key and Crypt::CBC Object. Both options allow us to directly specify the secret key and the IV.

The Crypt::CBC module also supports a third option, Salted Key, which allows us to specify a passphrase and a salt to the Crypt::CBC module, then ask the module to derive the secret key and IV.

According to the Crypt::CBC manual page, we need to provide the following parameters when calling the new() method to use the Salted Key option:

To help us understanding the Salted Key option, I wrote the following example Perl script, Crypt-CBC-Blowfish-Salted-Key.pl:

#- Crypt-CBC-Blowfish-Salted-Key.pl
#- Copyright (c) 2015 HerongYang.com, All Rights Reserved.
#-
   use Crypt::CBC;
   $algorithm = "Blowfish";
   my ($passHex, $saltHex, $plainHex) = @ARGV;

   print("Crypt::CBC Salted Key - output in Hex:\n");
   $passHex = "1122334455667788" unless $passHex;
   $saltHex = "0000000000000000" unless $saltHex;
   $plainHex = "0123456789abcdef" unless $plainHex;
   $passStr = pack("H*", $passHex);
   $saltStr = pack("H*", $saltHex);
   $plainStr = pack("H*", $plainHex);
   print("   Passphrase      ($passHex)\n");
   print("   Salt            ($saltHex)\n");
   print("   Plaintext       ($plainHex)\n");
      
   print("Creating Crypt::CBC with Passphrase and Salt...\n");
   $cipher = Crypt::CBC->new( 
      -cipher => $algorithm,
      -key => $passStr,
      -salt => $saltStr,
      -header => 'salt',
      -padding => 'none'
      );

   print("Encrypting plaintext...\n");
   $cipherStr = $cipher->encrypt($plainStr);
   $cipherHex = unpack("H*", $cipherStr);
   print("   Cipher Output   ($cipherHex)\n");

   $headerNameHex = substr($cipherHex,0,16);
   $headerValueHex = substr($cipherHex,16,16);
   $realCipherHex = substr($cipherHex,32);
   print("   Header Name     ($headerNameHex)\n");
   print("   Header Value    ($headerValueHex)\n");
   print("   Ciphertext      ($realCipherHex)\n");

   print("Decrypting ciphertext...\n");
   $decryptStr = $cipher->decrypt($cipherStr);
   $decryptHex = unpack("H*", $decryptStr);
   print("   Decrypted text  ($decryptHex)\n");

   $passStr = $cipher->passphrase();
   $passHex = unpack("H*", $passStr);
   print("   Pass Phrase     ($passHex)\n");

   $saltStr = $cipher->salt();
   $saltHex = unpack("H*", $saltStr);
   print("   Salt            ($saltHex)\n");

   $ivStr = $cipher->iv();
   $ivHex = unpack("H*", $ivStr);
   print("   IV              ($ivHex)\n");

If you run this example script with a passphrase, salt, and plaintext, you will get something like:

C:\herong>perl Crypt-CBC-Blowfish-Salted-Key.pl \
   1122334455667788 0000000000000000 0123456789abcdef
   
Crypt::CBC Salted Key - output in Hex:
   Passphrase      (1122334455667788)
   Salt            (0000000000000000)
   Plaintext       (0123456789abcdef)
Creating Crypt::CBC with Passphrase and Salt...
Encrypting plaintext...
   Cipher Output   (53616c7465645f5f00000000000000008eb0ddf700ee18b1)
   Header Name     (53616c7465645f5f)
   Header Value    (0000000000000000)
   Ciphertext      (8eb0ddf700ee18b1)
Decrypting ciphertext...
   Decrypted text  (0123456789abcdef)
   Pass Phrase     (1122334455667788)
   Salt            (0000000000000000)
   IV              (eda37dc506202bd2)

The output looks good:

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Blowfish Cipher Algorithm

 Perl Crypt::Blowfish Module

 Perl Crypt::ECB Perl Module

Perl Crypt::CBC Module

 What is Crypt::CBC

 Installing Crypt::CBC 2.33 with ActivePerl

 Crypt::CBC Encryption with Literal Keys

 Crypt::CBC Literal Key Error Cases

 Crypt::CBC Encryption with Crypt::Blowfish Objects

 Crypt::CBC Operation Simulation

 Crypt::CBC Encryption Verification

 Blowfish CBC 2-Block Test Vectors

 Crypt::CBC Prepending IV to Ciphertext

Crypt::CBC Encryption with Salted Keys

 Crypt::CBC Salted Key Test Cases

 Crypt::CBC Secret Key and IV Algorithm

 Crypt::CBC Encryption with Random Salt

 Crypt::CBC Padding Options

 Crypt::CBC Padding Option Tests

 Crypt::CBC Blowfish Encryption Summary

 Perl Crypt::CFB Perl Module

 OpenSSL "enc -bf-ecb" for Blowfish/ECB Encryption

 OpenSSL "enc -bf-cbc" for Blowfish/CBC Encryption

 OpenSSL "enc -bf-cfb" for Blowfish/CFB Encryption

 OpenSSL "enc -bf-ofb" for Blowfish/OFB Encryption

 PHP Mcrypt Extension for Blowfish

 Blowfish 8-Bit Cipher in PHP

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB