Overview

The Ubiq Security C#.NET library provides convenient interaction with the Ubiq Security Platform API from applications written in the C# language for .NET. It includes a pre-defined set of classes that will provide simple interfaces to encrypt and decrypt data.

This library also incorporates Ubiq Format Preserving Encryption (eFPE). eFPE allows encrypting so that the output cipher text is in the same format as the original plaintext. This includes preserving special characters and control over what characters are permitted in the cipher text. For example, consider encrypting a social security number '123-45-6789'. The cipher text will maintain the dashes and look something like: 'W$+-qF-oMMV'.

Installation

Using the .NET Core command-line interface (CLI) tools:

dotnet add package ubiq-security

Using the NuGet Command Line Interface (CLI):

nuget install ubiq-security

Using the Package Manager Console:

Install-Package ubiq-security

Building from source:

From within the cloned local git repository folder, use Visual Studio to open the solution file:

ubiq-dotnet.sln

Compiling using Visual Studio Environment:

• Visual Studio 2017 or newer
• In the Visual Studio Installer, make sure the following items are checked in the Workloads category:
  • .NET desktop development
  • .NET Core cross-platform development
• If building the ubiq-dotnet library from source, the ubiq-dotnet solution assumes the .NET Framework 4.6.1 for Windows, .NET Core 2.0 or later, and .NET Standard 2.0 or later.

Within the Solution Explorer pane, right-click the UbiqSecurity project, then select Set as Startup Project.

From the Build menu, execute Rebuild Solution to compile all projects.

Requirements to Use Ubiq-Security library

• Visual Studio 2017 or newer with one of the following development environments
  • .NET Framework (4.6.1 or newer) desktop development
  • .NET Core (2.0 or newer) cross-platform development

Usage

Credentials

The Client Library needs to be configured with your API Key Credentials which are available in the Ubiq Dashboard when you create a Dataset. The credentials can be explicitly set, set using environment variables, loaded from an explicit file or read from the default location [~/.ubiq/credentials].

A. Production and Production-Like Use

❗️

In a production deployment, it is critical to maintain the secrecy of Ubiq API Key Credentials (SECRET_CRYPTO_ACCESS_KEY and SECRET_SIGNING_KEY) and API tokens (ACCESS_KEY_ID).

These items SHOULD be stored in a secrets management server or password vault. They should NOT be stored in a standard data file, embedded in source code, committed to a source code repository, or insecurely used in environmental variables.

After API Key Credentials are obtained from the security server or vault by the client application, the Ubiq API Key Credential values can then be passed to the Credentials() function as strings.

B. Development Use

During initial development of an application, it may be desirable to use a simpler, insecure mechanism to store Ubiq API Key Credentials. The sections below provide some examples.

Sample applications

See the reference source and Readme in WinConsole and CoreConsole in the ubiq-dotnet.sln

• WinConsole - for Windows .NET Framework 4.6.1 or later
  • README.md
• CoreConsole - for portable .NET Core runtime.
  • README.md
• CoreConsoleFpe - for portable .NET Core runtime using eFPE.
  • README.md

Test apps reference the same portable UbiqSecurity DLL library, build against .NET Standard 2.0.

Referencing the Ubiq Security library

Make sure your project has a reference to the UbiqSecurity DLL library, either by adding the NuGet package (if using prebuilt library) or by adding a project reference (if built from source). Then, add the following to the top of your C# source file:

using UbiqSecurity;

Read credentials from a specific file and use a specific profile

// This example is for development use only - Storing Ubiq API Key Credentials in a file is not recommended
var credentials = UbiqFactory.ReadCredentialsFromFile("some-credential-file", "some-profile");

Read credentials from c:/users/yourlogin/.ubiq/credentials and use the default profile

// This example is for development use only - Storing Ubiq API Key credentials in a file is not recommended
var credentials = UbiqFactory.ReadCredentialsFromFile(string.Empty, null);

Use the following environment variables to set the credential values

UBIQ_ACCESS_KEY_ID
UBIQ_SECRET_SIGNING_KEY
UBIQ_SECRET_CRYPTO_ACCESS_KEY

// This example is for development use only - Storing Ubiq API Key Credentials in environmental variables is not generally recommended
var credentials = UbiqFactory.CreateCredentials()

Explicitly set the credentials

// This example is for development use only - Storing Ubiq API Key Credentials in source code is INSECURE!
var credentials = UbiqFactory.CreateCredentials(accessKeyId: "...", secretSigningKey: "...", secretCryptoAccessKey: "...");

Runtime exceptions

Unsuccessful requests raise exceptions. The exception object will contain the error details.

Runtime "hangs"

Some users have experienced "hangs" during encryption and decryption operations. So far, this has been solved by adding .ConfigureAwait(false) to those calls as in:

await UbiqEncrypt.EncryptAsync(credentials, plainBytes).ConfigureAwait(false);

More information can be found about C# SynchronizationContext can be found here.

Unstructured Data Encryption

Configuration

Create a Dataset and obtain API Key Credentials using the Create Dataset Wizard with Unstructured selected for the Data Type.

Encrypt a simple block of data

Pass credentials and plaintext bytes into the encryption function. The encrypted data bytes will be returned.

Note: This is a non-blocking function, so be sure to use the appropriate process controls to make sure the results are available when desired. See the following Microsoft documentation for additional information.

using UbiqSecurity;

byte[] plainBytes = ...;
byte[] encryptedBytes = await UbiqEncrypt.EncryptAsync(credentials, plainBytes);

Decrypt a simple block of data

Pass credentials and encrypted data into the decryption function. The plaintext data
bytes will be returned.

Note: This is a non-blocking function, so be sure to use the appropriate process controls to make sure the results are available when desired. See the following Microsoft documentation for additional information.

using UbiqSecurity;

byte[] encryptedBytes = ...;
byte[] plainBytes = await UbiqDecrypt.DecryptAsync(credentials, encryptedBytes);

Encrypt a large data element where data is loaded in chunks

• Create an encryption object using the credentials.
• Call the encryption instance BeginAsync() method.
• Call the encryption instance Update() method repeatedly until all the data is processed.
• Call the encryption instance End() method.

Below is the working code from the test application in the reference source:

async Task PiecewiseEncryptionAsync(string inFile, string outFile, IUbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials)
{
    using (var plainStream = new FileStream(inFile, FileMode.Open))
    {
        using (var cipherStream = new FileStream(outFile, FileMode.Create))
        {
            using (var ubiqEncrypt = new UbiqEncrypt(ubiqCredentials, 1))
            {
                // start the encryption
                var cipherBytes = await ubiqEncrypt.BeginAsync();
                cipherStream.Write(cipherBytes, 0, cipherBytes.Length);

                // process 128KB at a time
                var plainBytes = new byte[0x20000];

                // loop until the end of the input file is reached
                int bytesRead = 0;
                while ((bytesRead = plainStream.Read(plainBytes, 0, plainBytes.Length)) > 0)
                {
                    cipherBytes = ubiqEncrypt.Update(plainBytes, 0, bytesRead);
                    cipherStream.Write(cipherBytes, 0, cipherBytes.Length);
                }

                // finish the encryption
                cipherBytes = ubiqEncrypt.End();
                cipherStream.Write(cipherBytes, 0, cipherBytes.Length);
            }
        }
    }
}

Decrypt a large data element where data is loaded in chunks

• Create a decryption object using the credentials.
• Call the decryption instance Begin() method.
• Call the decryption instance UpdateAsync() method repeatedly until all data is processed.
• Call the decryption instance End() method

Below is the working code from the test application in the reference source:

async Task PiecewiseDecryptionAsync(string inFile, string outFile, IUbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials)
{
    using (var cipherStream = new FileStream(inFile, FileMode.Open))
    {
        using (var plainStream = new FileStream(outFile, FileMode.Create))
        {
            using (var ubiqDecrypt = new UbiqDecrypt(ubiqCredentials))
            {
                // start the decryption
                var plainBytes = ubiqDecrypt.Begin();
                plainStream.Write(plainBytes, 0, plainBytes.Length);

                // process 128KB at a time
                var cipherBytes = new byte[0x20000];

                // loop until the end of the input file is reached
                int bytesRead = 0;
                while ((bytesRead = cipherStream.Read(cipherBytes, 0, cipherBytes.Length)) > 0)
                {
                    plainBytes = await ubiqDecrypt.UpdateAsync(cipherBytes, 0, bytesRead);
                    plainStream.Write(plainBytes, 0, plainBytes.Length);
                }

                // finish the decryption
                plainBytes = ubiqDecrypt.End();
                plainStream.Write(plainBytes, 0, plainBytes.Length);
            }
        }
    }
}

Structured Data Encryption

Requirements

• Please follow the same requirements as described above for the non-eFPE functionality.
• Requires an additional library called ubiq-fpe-dotnet available for download in the Ubiq GitHub/GitLab repository.

Configuration

Create a Dataset and obtain API Key Credentials using the Create Dataset Wizard with Structured selected for the Data Type.

Referencing the Ubiq Security library

Make sure your project has a reference to the UbiqSecurity DLL library, either by adding the NuGet package (if using prebuilt library) or by adding a project reference (if built from source). Then, add the following to the top of your C# source file:

using UbiqSecurity;

Reading and setting credentials

The eFPE functions work with the credentials file and/or environmental variables in the same way as described
earlier in this document. You'll only need to make sure that the API keys you pull from the Ubiq dashboard are enabled for eFPE capability.

Encrypt a social security text field - simple interface

Pass credentials, the name of a Field Format Specification, FFS, and data into the encryption function. The encrypted data will be returned.

{
  byte[] tweakFF1 = {};
  var ffsName = "SSN";
  var plainText = "123-45-6789";

  var ubiqCredentials = UbiqFactory.ReadCredentialsFromFile("path/to/credentials/file", "default");

  var cipherText = await UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt.EncryptAsync(ubiqCredentials, plainText, ffsName, tweakFF1);
}

Decrypt a social security text field - simple interface

Pass credentials, the name of a Field Format Specification, FFS, and data into the decryption function. The plain text data will be returned.

{
  byte[] tweakFF1 = {};
  var ffsName = "SSN";
  var cipherText = "7\"c-`P-fGj?";

  var ubiqCredentials = UbiqFactory.ReadCredentialsFromFile("path/to/credentials/file", "default");

  var plainText = await UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt.DecryptAsync(ubiqCredentials, cipherText, ffsName, tweakFF1);
}

Encrypt a social security text field - bulk interface

Create an Encryption / Decryption object with the credentials and then allow repeatedly call encrypt data using a Field Format Specification, FFS, and the data. The encrypted data will be returned after each call.

Note that you would only need to create the "ubiqEncryptDecrypt" object once for any number of EncryptAsync and DecryptAsync calls, for example when you are bulk processing many such encrypt / decrypt operations in a session.

async Task EncryptionAsync(String FfsName, String plainText, IUbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials)
{
    // default tweak in case the FFS model allows for external tweak insertion          
    byte[] tweakFF1 = {};

    using (var ubiqEncryptDecrypt = new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt(ubiqCredentials))
    {
        var cipherText = await ubiqEncryptDecrypt.EncryptAsync(FfsName, plainText, tweakFF1);
        Console.WriteLine($"ENCRYPTED cipherText= {cipherText}\n");
    }

    return;
}

Decrypt a social security text field - bulk interface

Create an Encryption / Decryption object with the credentials and then repeatedly decrypt data using a Field Format Specification, FFS, and the data. The decrypted data will be returned after each call.

Note that you would only need to create the "ubiqEncryptDecrypt" object once for any number of EncryptAsync and DecryptAsync calls, for example when you are bulk processing many such encrypt / decrypt operations in a session.

async Task DecryptionAsync(String FfsName, String cipherText, IUbiqCredentials ubiqCredentials)
{

    byte[] tweakFF1 = {};

    using (var ubiqEncryptDecrypt = new UbiqFPEEncryptDecrypt(ubiqCredentials))
    {
        var plainText = await ubiqEncryptDecrypt.DecryptAsync(FfsName, cipherText, tweakFF1);
        Console.WriteLine($"DECRYPTED plainText= {plainText}\n");
    }

    return;
}