How can I sign a file using RSA and SHA256 with .NET?

Question

My application will take a set of files and sign them. (I'm not trying to sign an assembly.) There is a .p12 file that I get the private key from.

This is the code I was trying to use, but I get a System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException "Invalid algorithm specified.".

X509Certificate pXCert = new X509Certificate2(@"keyStore.p12", "password");
RSACryptoServiceProvider csp = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)pXCert.PrivateKey;
string id = CryptoConfig.MapNameToOID("SHA256");
return csp.SignData(File.ReadAllBytes(filePath), id);

According to this answer it can't be done (the RSACryptoServiceProvider does not support SHA-256), but I was hoping that it might be possible using a different library, like Bouncy Castle.

I'm new to this stuff and I'm finding Bouncy Castle to be very confusing. I'm porting a Java app to C# and I have to use the same type of encryption to sign the files, so I am stuck with RSA + SHA256.

How can I do this using Bouncy Castle, OpenSSL.NET, Security.Cryptography, or another 3rd party library I haven't heard of? I'm assuming, if it can be done in Java then it can be done in C#.

UPDATE:

this is what I got from the link in poupou's anwser

X509Certificate2 cert = new X509Certificate2(KeyStoreFile, password");
RSACryptoServiceProvider rsacsp = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)cert.PrivateKey;
CspParameters cspParam = new CspParameters();
cspParam.KeyContainerName = rsacsp.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyContainerName;
cspParam.KeyNumber = rsacsp.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyNumber == KeyNumber.Exchange ? 1 : 2;
RSACryptoServiceProvider aescsp = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(cspParam);
aescsp.PersistKeyInCsp = false;
byte[] signed = aescsp.SignData(File.ReadAllBytes(file), "SHA256");
bool isValid = aescsp.VerifyData(File.ReadAllBytes(file), "SHA256", signed);

       

The problem is that I'm not getting the same results as I got with the original tool. As far as I can tell from reading the code the CryptoServiceProvider that does the actual signing is not using the PrivateKey from key store file. Is that Correct?

Answer 1

RSA + SHA256 can and will work...

Your later example may not work all the time, it should use the hash algorithm's OID, rather than it's name. As per your first example, this is obtained from a call to CryptoConfig.MapNameToOID(AlgorithmName) where AlgorithmName is what you are providing (i.e. "SHA256").

First you are going to need is the certificate with the private key. I normally read mine from the LocalMachine or CurrentUser store by using a public key file (.cer) to identify the private key, and then enumerate the certificates and match on the hash...

X509Certificate2 publicCert = new X509Certificate2(@"C:\mycertificate.cer");

//Fetch private key from the local machine store
X509Certificate2 privateCert = null;
X509Store store = new X509Store(StoreLocation.LocalMachine);
store.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly);
foreach( X509Certificate2 cert in store.Certificates)
{
    if (cert.GetCertHashString() == publicCert.GetCertHashString())
        privateCert = cert;
}

However you get there, once you've obtained a certificate with a private key we need to reconstruct it. This may be required due to the way the certificate creates it's private key, but I'm not really sure why. Anyway, we do this by first exporting the key and then re-importing it using whatever intermediate format you like, the easiest is xml:

//Round-trip the key to XML and back, there might be a better way but this works
RSACryptoServiceProvider key = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
key.FromXmlString(privateCert.PrivateKey.ToXmlString(true));

Once that is done we can now sign a piece of data as follows:

//Create some data to sign
byte[] data = new byte[1024];

//Sign the data
byte[] sig = key.SignData(data, CryptoConfig.MapNameToOID("SHA256"));

Lastly, the verification can be done directly with the certificate's public key without need for the reconstruction as we did with the private key:

key = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)publicCert.PublicKey.Key;
if (!key.VerifyData(data, CryptoConfig.MapNameToOID("SHA256"), sig))
    throw new CryptographicException();

Answer 2

The use of privateKey.toXMLString(true) or privateKey.exportParameters(true) aren't usable in a secure environment, since they require your private key to be exportable, which is NOT a good practice.

A better solution is to explicitly load the "Enhanced" crypto provider as such:

// Find my openssl-generated cert from the registry
var store = new X509Store(StoreLocation.LocalMachine);
store.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly);
var certificates = store.Certificates.Find(X509FindType.FindBySubjectName, "myapp.com", true);
var certificate = certificates[0];
store.Close();
// Note that this will return a Basic crypto provider, with only SHA-1 support
var privKey = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)certificate.PrivateKey;
// Force use of the Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider with openssl-generated SHA256 keys
var enhCsp = new RSACryptoServiceProvider().CspKeyContainerInfo;
var cspparams = new CspParameters(enhCsp.ProviderType, enhCsp.ProviderName, privKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyContainerName);
privKey = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(cspparams);

Answer 3

This is how I dealt with that problem:

 X509Certificate2 privateCert = new X509Certificate2("certificate.pfx", password, X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);

 // This instance can not sign and verify with SHA256:
 RSACryptoServiceProvider privateKey = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)privateCert.PrivateKey;

 // This one can:
 RSACryptoServiceProvider privateKey1 = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
 privateKey1.ImportParameters(privateKey.ExportParameters(true));

 byte[] data = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Data to be signed"); 

 byte[] signature = privateKey1.SignData(data, "SHA256");

 bool isValid = privateKey1.VerifyData(data, "SHA256", signature);

Answer 4

I settled on changing the key file to specify the appropriate Crypto Service Provider, avoiding the issue in .NET altogether.

So when I create a PFX file out of a PEM private key and a CRT public certificate, I do it as follows:

openssl pkcs12 -export -aes256 -CSP "Microsoft Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider" -inkey priv.pem -in pub.crt -out priv.pfx

The key part being -CSP "Microsoft Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider".

(-inkey specifies the private key file and -in specifies the public certificate to incorporate.)

You may need to tweak this for the file formats you have on hand. The command line examples on this page can help with that: https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-converter.html

I found this solution here: http://hintdesk.com/c-how-to-fix-invalid-algorithm-specified-when-signing-with-sha256/

Answer 5

Use can use this on more recent frameworks.

    public byte[] GetSignature(byte[] inputData)
    {
        using (var rsa = this.signingCertificate.GetRSAPrivateKey())
        {
            return rsa.SignData(inputData, HashAlgorithmName.SHA256, RSASignaturePadding.Pkcs1);
        }
    }

    public bool ValidateSignature(byte[] inputData, byte[] signature)
    {
        using (var rsa = this.signingCertificate.GetRSAPublicKey())
        {
            return rsa.VerifyData(inputData, signature, HashAlgorithmName.SHA256, RSASignaturePadding.Pkcs1);
        }
    }

The signingCertificate above is a X509Certificate2 with a private key. This method does not require you to import any existing keys and works in a secure environment.

Answer 6

When you use a certificate to get your RSACryptoServiceProvider it really matters what's the underlying CryptoAPI provider. By default, when you create a certificate with 'makecert', it's "RSA-FULL" which only supports SHA1 hashes for signature. You need the new "RSA-AES" one that supports SHA2.

So, you can create your certificate with an additional option: -sp "Microsoft Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider" (or an equivalent -sy 24) and then your code would work without the key juggling stuff.

Answer 7

Here is how I signed a string without having to modify the certificate (to a Microsoft Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic provider).

        byte[] certificate = File.ReadAllBytes(@"C:\Users\AwesomeUser\Desktop\Test\ServerCertificate.pfx");
        X509Certificate2 cert2 = new X509Certificate2(certificate, string.Empty, X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);
        string stringToBeSigned = "This is a string to be signed";
        SHA256Managed shHash = new SHA256Managed();
        byte[] computedHash = shHash.ComputeHash(Encoding.Default.GetBytes(stringToBeSigned));


        var certifiedRSACryptoServiceProvider = cert2.PrivateKey as RSACryptoServiceProvider;
        RSACryptoServiceProvider defaultRSACryptoServiceProvider = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
        defaultRSACryptoServiceProvider.ImportParameters(certifiedRSACryptoServiceProvider.ExportParameters(true));
        byte[] signedHashValue = defaultRSACryptoServiceProvider.SignData(computedHash, "SHA256");
        string signature = Convert.ToBase64String(signedHashValue);
        Console.WriteLine("Signature : {0}", signature);

        RSACryptoServiceProvider publicCertifiedRSACryptoServiceProvider = cert2.PublicKey.Key as RSACryptoServiceProvider;
        bool verify = publicCertifiedRSACryptoServiceProvider.VerifyData(computedHash, "SHA256", signedHashValue);
        Console.WriteLine("Verification result : {0}", verify);

Answer 8

According to this blog it should work with FX 3.5 (see note below). However it's important to recall that most of .NET cryptography is based on CryptoAPI (even if CNG is being more and more exposed in recent FX releases).

The key point is that CryptoAPI algorithm support depends on the Crypto Service Provider (CSP) being used and that varies a bit between Windows versions (i.e. what's working on Windows 7 might not work on Windows 2000).

Read the comments (from the blog entry) to see a possible workaround where you specify the AES CSP (instead of the default one) when creating your RSACCryptoServiceProvider instance. That seems to work for some people, YMMV.

Note: this is confusing to many people because all the released .NET frameworks includes a managed implementation of SHA256 which cannot be used by CryptoAPI. FWIW Mono does not suffer from such issues ;-)

Answer 9

I know this is an old thread but for those still stuck in the past and looking for an answer, the following worked for me based off @BKibler's answer. The comments stated it's not using the correct key and it's because the solution is missing a couple key settings.

// Find my openssl-generated cert from the registry
var store = new X509Store(StoreLocation.LocalMachine);
store.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly);
var certificates = store.Certificates.Find(X509FindType.FindBySubjectName, "myapp.com", true);
var certificate = certificates[0];
store.Close();

// Note that this will return a Basic crypto provider, with only SHA-1 support
var privKey = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)certificate.PrivateKey;

// Force use of the Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider with openssl-generated SHA256 keys
var enhCsp = new RSACryptoServiceProvider().CspKeyContainerInfo;

if (!Enum.TryParse<KeyNumber>(privKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyNumber.ToString(), out var keyNumber))
     throw new Exception($"Unknown key number {privKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyNumber}");

var cspparams = new CspParameters(enhCsp.ProviderType, enhCsp.ProviderName, privKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyContainerName)
{
     KeyNumber = (int)keyNumber,
     Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseExistingKey
};

privKey = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(cspparams);

You need to set both "KeyNumber" and "Flags" so the existing (non-exportable) key is used and you can use the public key from the certificate to verify.

Answer 10

I have noticed similar issues in .NET with the wrong private key being used (or was it flat-out errors? I do not recall) when the certificate I am working with is not in the user/computer certificate store. Installing it into the stored fixed the problem for my scenario and things started working as expected - perhaps you can try that.