Cryptography & Encryption

Cryptography

Cheatsheet - Crypto 101pequalsnp-team.github.io

Ciphers

• https://www.boxentriq.com/code-breaking <-- useful site which can help identify type of cipher.

• https://www.dcode.fr <-- one of the best sites I have found with many decoders for many types of ciphers.

• Cyber Chef <-- very useful for chained ciphers which require different steps to solve. Can decrypt certificates.

Fernet

Fernet (symmetric encryption) - looks like base64 but decodes to garbage, in two parts. First part (32 bytes) is the key. Uses 128-bit AES in CBC mode and PKCS7 padding, with HMAC using SHA256 for authentication. IV is created from os.random().

Decode fernet @ https://asecuritysite.com/encryption/ferdecode <-- Will also give the IV and timestamp (could be useful!) more info about this @ https://cryptography.io/en/latest/fernet

from cryptography.fernet import Fernet

key = Fernet.generate_key()
f = Fernet(key)
token = f.encrypt(b"this is my key")
print('the key is ' + key + '/nThe cipher text is ' + token)
==========decrypt
from cryptography.fernet import Fernet
key = 'input key here'
f = Fernet(key)
token = 'cipher text here'
print(f.decrypt(token))

Malbolge

Esoteric inferno encryption. Used in some CTF challenges. Malbolge programming language - text from base64 looks like random text, but complete garbage (much of it unprintable.) . Read for at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge and https://www.tutorialspoint.com/execute_malbolge_online.php

BrainFuck

A programming language that uses a series of only +-.[]<> characters.

++++++++++[>+>+++>+++++++>++++++++++<<<<-]>>>----.>++++++++++++++.-----------------.++++++++.+++++.--------.+++++++++++++++.------------------.++++++++. = BrainFuck

Decode using https://www.dcode.fr/brainfuck-language

OOK!

Uses only the word ook paired with punctuation marks (.!?). Shorthand leaves out ook.

....................!?.?...?.......?...............?....................?.?.?.?.!!?!.?.?.?..................!.!.!!!!!!!!!.?.......!. = OOK!

Decode using https://www.dcode.fr/ook-language

Test for Plaintext Output from a (Python) Script

#checks the output from crypto and sees if at least 60% is ascii letters and returns true for possible plaintext
def is_plaintext(ptext):
    num_letters = sum(map(lambda x : 1 if x in string.ascii_letters else 0, ptext))
    if num_letters / len(ptext) >= .6:
      return True

If this function is giving false positives/negatives, it can be tweaked by altering the number in the line:

if num_letters / len(ptext) >= .6:

0.6 has been tested as working for simple CTF usage.

Digital Certificates

X.509

https://8gwifi.org/PemParserFunctions.jsp -- extract information from various digital certificates

SSH Keys

For those interested in the details - you can see what's inside the public key file (generated as explained above), by doing this:- ```openssl rsa -noout -text -inform PEM -in key.pub -pubin or for the private key file, this:- openssl rsa -noout -text -in key.private which outputs as text on the console the actual components of the key (modulus, exponents, primes, ...)

`` extract public key from private key:openssl rsa -in privkey.pem -pubout -out key.pub`

Encryption/Decryption

https://www.devglan.com/online-tools/aes-encryption-decryption

CyberChef: Website for encryption/decryption of many different types at same time

good cipher tools: http://rumkin.com/

one time pad: pt - ct = key

decrypt rsa private key: openssl rsautl -decrypt -inkey $key_file < $pass.crypt ($pass.crypt is hex file? encrypted contents of pub key?)

• Ippsec:HacktheBox - Charon

Decrypt LDAP Passwords

https://dotnetfiddle.net/2RDoWz

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;
					
public class Program
{
	public static void Main()
	{
	  //Change these three variables to decode your own; need a key and IV to decode!
		string ciphertext = "BQO5l5Kj9MdErXx6Q6AGOw==";
		string key = "c4scadek3y654321";
		string iv = "1tdyjCbY1Ix49842";
		
		string plaintext = string.Empty;
		plaintext = DecryptString(ciphertext, key, iv);
		Console.WriteLine(plaintext);
	}
	
	public static string DecryptString(string EncryptedString, string Key, string iv)
    {
      byte[] buffer = Convert.FromBase64String(EncryptedString);
      Aes aes = Aes.Create();
      ((SymmetricAlgorithm) aes).KeySize = 128;
      ((SymmetricAlgorithm) aes).BlockSize = 128;
      ((SymmetricAlgorithm) aes).IV = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(iv);
      ((SymmetricAlgorithm) aes).Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
      ((SymmetricAlgorithm) aes).Key = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(Key);
      using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream(buffer))
      {
        using (CryptoStream cryptoStream = new CryptoStream((Stream) memoryStream, ((SymmetricAlgorithm) aes).CreateDecryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Read))
        {
          byte[] numArray = new byte[checked (buffer.Length - 1 + 1)]; //not sure why this has -1+1 here, example works without it though...
          cryptoStream.Read(numArray, 0, numArray.Length);
          return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(numArray);
        }
      }
    }
}

Decodes to: w3lc0meFr31nd

If you like this content and would like to see more, please consider buying me a coffee!