Validate EC SHA 256 signature in .net without bouncy castle

Question

I am implementing Apple's App Attestation service.

As part of the process, i receive a EC key and a signature.

Sample key:

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEd34IR9wYL76jLyZ148O/hjXo9iaF
z/q/xEMXCwYPy6yxbxYzWDZPegG4FH+snXaXQPYD6QIzZNY/kcMjIGtUTg==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

Sample signature:

MEUCIQDXR/22YAi90PUdKrtTHwigrDxWFoiCqPLB/Of1bZPCKQIgNLxFAeUU2x+FSWfhRGX0SOKUIDxPRoigsCHpJxgGXXU=

Sample sha256 hash:

S3i6LAEzew5SDjQbq59/FraEAvGDg9y7fRIfbnhHPf4=

If i put this into a couple of txt files like so:

System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes("/wherever/sig", Convert.FromBase64String(sampleSignature));

System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes("/wherever/hash", Convert.FromBase64String(sampleSha256Hash));

Then i can validate the signature with Openssl like so

openssl dgst -sha256 -verify sampleKey.pem -signature /wherever/sig /wherever/hash

(the above outputs)

Verified OK

I can verify the signature using Bouncy Castle like so:

var bouncyCert = DotNetUtilities.FromX509Certificate(certificate);
var bouncyPk = (ECPublicKeyParameters)bouncyCert.GetPublicKey();
var verifier = SignerUtilities.GetSigner("SHA-256withECDSA");
verifier.Init(false, bouncyPk);
verifier.BlockUpdate(sha256HashByteArray, 0, sha256HashByteArray.Length);
var valid = verifier.VerifySignature(signature); // Happy days, this is true

Since i don't want to share my whole certificate here, the same sample may be achieved as follows:

// these are the values from the sample key shared at the start of the post
// as returned by BC. Note that .Net's Y byte array is completely different.

 Org.BouncyCastle.Math.BigInteger x = new Org.BouncyCastle.Math.BigInteger(Convert.FromBase64String("d34IR9wYL76jLyZ148O/hjXo9iaFz/q/xEMXCwYPy6w="));
Org.BouncyCastle.Math.BigInteger y = new Org.BouncyCastle.Math.BigInteger(Convert.FromBase64String("ALFvFjNYNk96AbgUf6yddpdA9gPpAjNk1j+RwyMga1RO"));

X9ECParameters nistParams = NistNamedCurves.GetByName("P-256");
ECDomainParameters domainParameters = new ECDomainParameters(nistParams.Curve, nistParams.G, nistParams.N, nistParams.H, nistParams.GetSeed());
var G = nistParams.G;
Org.BouncyCastle.Math.EC.ECCurve curve = nistParams.Curve;
Org.BouncyCastle.Math.EC.ECPoint q = curve.CreatePoint(x, y);

ECPublicKeyParameters pubkeyParam = new ECPublicKeyParameters(q, domainParameters);

var verifier = SignerUtilities.GetSigner("SHA-256withECDSA");
verifier.Init(false, pubkeyParam);
verifier.BlockUpdate(sha256HashByteArray, 0, sha256HashByteArray.Length);
var valid = verifier.VerifySignature(signature); // again, happy days.

However, i really want to avoid using bouncy castle.

So i am trying to use ECDsa available in .net core:

using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;

var certificate = new X509Certificate2(cert);
var publicKey = certificate.GetECDsaPublicKey();
var valid = publicKey.VerifyHash(sha256HashByteArray, signature); // FALSE :(

if you want to try to run the above here's the sample that creates the keys without the whole certificate:

using System.Security.Cryptography;

var ecParams = new ECParameters();
ecParams.Curve = ECCurve.CreateFromValue("1.2.840.10045.3.1.7");
ecParams.Q.X = Convert.FromBase64String("d34IR9wYL76jLyZ148O/hjXo9iaFz/q/xEMXCwYPy6w=");
// I KNOW that this is different from BC sample - i got each respective values from
// certificates in respective libraries, and it seems the way they format the coordinates
// are different.
ecParams.Q.Y = Convert.FromBase64String("sW8WM1g2T3oBuBR/rJ12l0D2A+kCM2TWP5HDIyBrVE4=");

var ecDsa = ECDsa.Create(ecParams);

var isValid = ecDsa.VerifyHash(nonce, signature); // FALSE :(

I tried using VerifyData() instead and feeding raw data and HashAlgorithmName.SHA256 with no luck.

I found a response here (https://stackoverflow.com/a/49449863/2057955) that seems to suggest that .net expects the signature as r,s concatenation, so i pulled them out of the DER sequence that i get back from my device (see sample signature) however that had no luck at all, i just can't get that 'true' back.

Question: how can i verify this EC signature using .Net Core on LINUX/MacOs (so unable to use ECDsaCng class)?

Answer 1

SignerUtilities.GetSigner() hashes implicitly, i.e. sha256HashByteArray is hashed again. Therefore instead of ECDsa#VerifyHash() (does not hash implicitly) the method ECDsa#VerifyData() (hashes implicitly) must be used.
Also, SignerUtilities.GetSigner() returns a signature in ASN.1 format, and ECDsa#VerifyData() expects a signature in r|s format (as you already figured out).
If both are taken into account, the verification is successful:

byte[] publicKey = Convert.FromBase64String("MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEd34IR9wYL76jLyZ148O/hjXo9iaFz/q/xEMXCwYPy6yxbxYzWDZPegG4FH+snXaXQPYD6QIzZNY/kcMjIGtUTg==");
byte[] sha256HashByteArray = Convert.FromBase64String("S3i6LAEzew5SDjQbq59/FraEAvGDg9y7fRIfbnhHPf4=");
byte[] signatureRS = Convert.FromBase64String("10f9tmAIvdD1HSq7Ux8IoKw8VhaIgqjywfzn9W2Twik0vEUB5RTbH4VJZ+FEZfRI4pQgPE9GiKCwIeknGAZddQ==");

var ecDsa = ECDsa.Create();
ecDsa.ImportSubjectPublicKeyInfo(publicKey, out _);

var isValid = ecDsa.VerifyData(sha256HashByteArray, signatureRS, HashAlgorithmName.SHA256);
Console.WriteLine(isValid); // True

---

Regarding the signature formats:

The posted signature in ASN.1 format

MEUCIQDXR/22YAi90PUdKrtTHwigrDxWFoiCqPLB/Of1bZPCKQIgNLxFAeUU2x+FSWfhRGX0SOKUIDxPRoigsCHpJxgGXXU=

is hex encoded

3045022100d747fdb66008bdd0f51d2abb531f08a0ac3c56168882a8f2c1fce7f56d93c229022034bc4501e514db1f854967e14465f448e294203c4f4688a0b021e92718065d75

From this, the signature in r|s format can be derived as (s. here)

d747fdb66008bdd0f51d2abb531f08a0ac3c56168882a8f2c1fce7f56d93c22934bc4501e514db1f854967e14465f448e294203c4f4688a0b021e92718065d75

or Base64 encoded:

10f9tmAIvdD1HSq7Ux8IoKw8VhaIgqjywfzn9W2Twik0vEUB5RTbH4VJZ+FEZfRI4pQgPE9GiKCwIeknGAZddQ==