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C#


CSHARP.CRYPTO.KEY : Insecure Key Derivation (C#)

Summary

An insecure key derivation function is used.

The iterations of an algorithm during an encryption are very relevant for the safety of encrypted data.

Some cryptography algorithms are nowadays considered as outdated and unsafe or actually broken, since they are too easy to decode. This checker identifies uses of unsafe algorithms for cryptography.

Properties

Class Name Insecure Key Derivation (C#)
Significance security
Mnemonic CSHARP.CRYPTO.KEY
Categories
CWE CWE:326 Inadequate Encryption Strength
OWASP-2017 OWASP-2017:A2 Broken authentication
OWASP-2021 OWASP-2021:A2 Cryptographic failures
  OWASP-2021:A4 Insecure design
  OWASP-2021:A7 Identification and authorization failures
OWASP-2025 OWASP-2025:A04 Cryptographic Failures
  OWASP-2025:A06 Insecure Design
Availability Available for C# only.
Enabling Checks for this warning class are enabled by default. To disable them, add the following WARNING_FILTER rule to the project configuration file.
WARNING_FILTER += discard class="Insecure Key Derivation (C#)"

Example

using System;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

namespace DocumentationExample
{
    class OtherCryptographyExamples
    {

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            Console.WriteLine("Enter a password to produce a key:");

            byte[] pwd = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(Console.ReadLine());

            byte[] salt = new byte[6];

            RNGCryptoServiceProvider rand = new RNGCryptoServiceProvider();
            rand.GetBytes(salt);

            AesCryptoServiceProvider aes = new AesCryptoServiceProvider();

            try
            {

                PasswordDeriveBytes pdb = new PasswordDeriveBytes(pwd, salt); // Two warnings issued here: 
                                                                              // - Insecure Key Derivation (C#)
                                                                              //   because PasswordDeriveBytes() is deprecated in favor of Rfc2898DeriveBytes().
                                                                              // - Inadequate Salt (C#)
                                                                              //   because 'salt' is only 6 bytes.

                // Create the key and set it to the Key property
                // of the AesCryptoServiceProvider object.
                aes.Key = pdb.CryptDeriveKey("Aes", "SHA256", 192, aes.IV);

                // ...

            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
            }

        }
       
    }
}

Resolution

Use a safer key derivation function.

Relevant Configuration File Parameters

The following configuration file parameters affect checks for this warning class.

 

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