Ubiq Security Python Library

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

This repository is hosted at [Gitlab][repository] and mirrored elsewhere.

To contribute or report an issue, please make requests there.

Documentation

See the [Python API docs][apidocs].

You can improve it by sending pull requests to [this repository][repository].

Installation

Using the package manager:

You may want to make sure you are running the latest version of pip3 by
first executing

pip3 install --upgrade pip

You don't need this source code unless you want to modify the package. If you just want to use the package, install from PyPi using pip3, a package manager for Python3.

pip3 install --upgrade ubiq-security

Installing from source:

From within the cloned git repository directory, Install from source with:

cd ubiq-python
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
python3 setup.py install

You may need to run the python3 commands above using sudo.

M2Crypto

The Ubiq Security python library has support for M2Crypto for faster Structured encryption/decryption. The library supports either versions 0.41.0 or 0.42.0. Run the following commands additionally to install it:

pip install m2crypto==0.42.0 six==1.16.0 swig==4.2.1

M2Crypto has specific requirements as well which varies depending upon your actual environment. If you encounter problems installing the Ubiq Security libraries, please see M2Crypto for the latest notes and instructions.

In the event you are unable to use M2Crypto, the library will fall back on pyca/cryptography which is already used for Unstructured encryption. This will result in the same encrypted data with no loss, but at a slightly slower speed.

Requirements

• Python 3.5+

Usage

The library needs to be configured with your account credentials which is
available in your [Ubiq Dashboard][dashboard] [credentials][credentials]. The credentials can be explicitly set, set using environment variables, loaded from an explicit file or read from the default location [~/.ubiq/credentials]

import ubiq_security as ubiq

Read credentials from a specific file and use a specific profile

Credentials File:

[some-profile]
ACCESS_KEY_ID = ...
SECRET_SIGNING_KEY = ...
SECRET_CRYPTO_ACCESS_KEY = ...
SERVER = ...

credentials = ubiq.configCredentials(config_file = "some-credential-file", profile = "some-profile")

Configuration information can also be passed when creating your credentials object. See Configuration below.

Read credentials from ~/.ubiq/credentials and use the default profile

credentials = ubiq.configCredentials()

Use the following environment variables to set the credential values

UBIQ_ACCESS_KEY_ID
UBIQ_SECRET_SIGNING_KEY UBIQ_SECRET_CRYPTO_ACCESS_KEY UBIQ_CONFIGURATION_FILE_PATH

credentials = ubiq.credentials()

Explicitly set the credentials

credentials = ubiq.credentials(access_key_id = "...", secret_signing_key = "...", secret_crypto_access_key = "...")

IDP Integration

Ubiq currently supports both Okta and Entra IDP integration. Instead of using the credentials provided when creating the API Key, the username (email) and password will be used to authenticate with the IDP and provide access to the Ubiq platform.

Additional server information will be needed in the configuration file, see the Configuration - IDP Specific Parameters section for more information.

After creating your credentials object, you will need to call init(). This sets up the handshake between your IDP provider and Ubiq and completes your credentials.

credentials = ubiq.configCredentials(profile="idp-profile")

credentials.init()

Environment Variables

If using environment variables, these are the variables you will need set:

• UBIQ_IDP_USERNAME
• UBIQ_IDP_PASSWORD

Credentials File

An example of what the credentials would look like in your ~/.ubiq/credentials (or other path) credentials file:

[idp-profile]
IDP_USERNAME= ...
IDP_PASSWORD= ...

Explicitly set the credentials

credentials = ubiq.credentials(idp_username="...", idp_password="...")

Handling exceptions

Unsuccessful requests raise exceptions. The class of the exception will reflect
the sort of error that occurred. Please see the Api Reference for a description of the error classes you should handle, and for information on how to inspect these errors.

Ubiq Unstructured Encryption

Encrypt a simple block of data

Pass credentials and data into the encryption function. The encrypted data
will be returned. The plaintext input needs to be an instance of either bytes, bytearray or memoryview objects.

import ubiq_security as ubiq

encrypted_data = ubiq.encrypt(credentials, plaintext_data)

Decrypt a simple block of data

Pass credentials and encrypted data into the decryption function. The plaintext data
will be returned. The encrypted input needs to be an instance of either bytes, bytearray or memoryview objects.

import ubiq_security as ubiq

plaintext_data = ubiq.decrypt(credentials, encrypted_data)

Encrypt a large data element where data is loaded in chunks

• Create an encryption object using the credentials.
• Call the encryption instance begin method
• Call the encryption instance update method repeatedly until all the data is processed.
  The input data element must be an instance of either bytes, bytearray or memoryview objects.
• Call the encryption instance end method

import ubiq_security as ubiq

# Process 1 MiB of plaintext data at a time
BLOCK_SIZE = 1024 * 1024

# Rest of the program
....

   encryption = ubiq.encryption(credentials, 1)

   # Write out the header information
   encrypted_data = encryption.begin()
    
   # Loop until the end of the input file is reached
   while True:
       data = infile.read(BLOCK_SIZE)
       encrypted_data += encryption.update(data)
       if (len(data) != BLOCK_SIZE):
          break

   # Make sure any additional encrypted data is retrieved from encryption instance
   # and resources are freed
   encrypted_data += encryption.end()
        

Decrypt a large data element where data is loaded in chunks

• Create an instance of the decryption object using the credentials.
• Call the decryption instance begin method
• Call the decryption instance update method repeatedly until all the data is processed
  The input data element must be an instance of either bytes, bytearray or memoryview objects.
• Call the decryption instance end method

import ubiq_security as ubiq

# Process 1 MiB of encrypted data at a time
BLOCK_SIZE = 1024 * 1024

# Rest of the program
....

    decryption = ubiq.decryption(creds)

    # Start the decryption and get any header information
    plaintext_data = decryption.begin()

    # Loop until the end of the input file is reached
    while True:
    	data = infile.read(BLOCK_SIZE)
        plaintext_data += decryption.update(data)
        if (len(data) != BLOCK_SIZE):
            break

    # Make sure an additional plaintext data is retrieved and
    # release any allocated resources
    plaintext_data += decryption.end()

Encrypt and Decrypt with Reuse

To reuse the encryption/decryption objects, initialize them with the credentials object and store them in a variable. Encryption takes an extra parameter, the number of separate encryptions the caller wishes to perform with the key. This number may be limited by the server.

encryptor = ubiq.encryption(credentials, 6)
decryptor = ubiq.decryption(credentials)

raw_data = ["alligator","otter","eagle owl","armadillo","dormouse","ground hog"]
encrypted_data = []

for animal in raw_data:
  enc = encryptor.begin() + encryptor.update(animal.encode()) + encryptor.end()
  encrypted_data.append(enc)

for enc_data in encrypted_data:
  decrypted = decryptor.begin() + decryptor.update(enc_data) + decryptor.end()
  print(decrypted.decode('UTF-8'))

Ubiq Structured Encryption

This library incorporates Ubiq Structured Encryption.

Requirements

• Please follow the same requirements as described above for the non-structured functionality.

Usage

You will need to obtain account credentials in the same way as described above for conventional encryption/decryption. When
you do this in your [Ubiq Dashboard][dashboard] [credentials][credentials], you'll need to enable access to structured datasets. The credentials can be set using environment variables, loaded from an explicitly specified file, or read from the default location (~/.ubiq/credentials).

Require the Security Client module in your Python class.

import ubiq_security as ubiq
import ubiq_security.structured as ubiq_structured

Caching

When performing encryption/decryption, keys are retrieved from the Ubiq API. To speed up peformance and reduce the number of calls to the API, keys are stored in a cache within the Credentials object. It is recommended to reuse the credentials object instead of reinstantiating it unless necessary to maintain a faster runtime.

Encrypt a social security text field - simple interface

Pass credentials, the name of a structured dataset, and data into the encryption function.
The encrypted data will be returned.

dataset_name = "SSN";
plain_text = "123-45-6789";

credentials = ubiq.ConfigCredentials('./credentials', 'default');

encrypted_data = ubiq_structured.Encrypt(
        credentials,
        dataset_name,
        plain_text);
        
print('ENCRYPTED ciphertext= ' + encrypted_data + '\n');

Decrypt a social security text field - simple interface

Pass credentials, the name of a structured dataset, and data into the decryption function.
The decrypted data will be returned.

dataset_name = "SSN";
cipher_text = "300-0E-274t";

credentials = ubiq.ConfigCredentials('./credentials', 'default');

decrypted_text = ubiq_structured.Decrypt(
        credentials,
        dataset_name,
        cipher_text);
        
print('DECRYPTED decrypted_text= ' + decrypted_text + '\n');

Additional information on how to use these models in your own applications is available by contacting Ubiq.

Custom Metadata for Usage Reporting

There are cases where a developer would like to attach metadata to usage information reported by the application. Both the structured and unstructured interfaces allow user_defined metadata to be sent with the usage information reported by the libraries.

The add_reporting_user_defined_metadata function accepts a string in JSON format that will be stored in the database with the usage records. The string must be less than 1024 characters and be a valid JSON format. The string must include both the { and } symbols. The supplied value will be used until the object goes out of scope. Due to asynchronous processing, changing the value may be immediately reflected in subsequent usage. If immediate changes to the values are required, it would be safer to create a new encrypt / decrypt object and call the add_reporting_user_defined_metadata function with the new values.

Examples are shown below.

  ...
  credentials = ubiq.ConfigCredentials('./credentials', 'default');

  special_value = "information"
  credentials.add_reporting_user_defined_metadata("{\"some_key\":\"some_value\"}")

  encrypted_data = ubiq_structured.Encrypt(
    credentials,
    dataset_name,
    plain_text);
  ...
  # Structured Encrypt and Decrypt operations

  ...
  credentials = ubiq.credentials(access_key_id = "...", secret_signing_key = "...", secret_crypto_access_key = "...")
  credentials.add_reporting_user_defined_metadata("{\"some_meaningful_flag\" : true }")
  ct = ubiq.encrypt(creds,
                  data)
   ....
  # Unstructured Encrypt operations

Retrieve Current Usage

Within an encryption session, either Encrypt or Decrypt, the client library can retrieve a copy of the unreported events. This is for read only purposes and has the potential to be different each time it is called due to encrypt / decrypt activities and the asynchronous event billing process.

  ...
  ct = ubiq.encrypt(creds,data)
  
  usage = creds.get_copy_of_usage()
  
  ...

Encrypt For Search

The same plaintext data will result in different cipher text when encrypted using different data keys. The Encrypt For Search function will encrypt the same plain text for a given dataset using all previously used data keys. This will provide a collection of cipher text values that can be used when searching for existing records where the data was encrypted and the specific version of the data key is not known in advance.

credentials = ubiq.ConfigCredentials('./credentials', 'default');
dataset_name = "SSN";
plain_text = "123-45-6789";

ct_arr = ubiq_structured.EncryptForSearch(credentials, dataset_name, plain_text)

Configuration

A sample configuration file is shown below. The configuration is in JSON format (example). Configuration can be set either as a file read from a path, or as a provided configuration object by reading from a dictionary.

Reading from File

By default, configuration is read in from ~/.ubiq/configuration. To pass a different file, either by specifying the file as an argument to your credentials object:

# config_file is an optional parameter on both credential object instantiation methods.
# Credentials File and Profile or default credentials file and `default` profile.
credentials = ubiq.configCredentials(credentials_file="...", profile="...", config_file= "...")
# ENV Variables or explicit credentials as arguments
credentials = ubiq.credentials(ACCESS_KEY_ID="...", SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="...", config_file= "...")

Or create a config object and pass that to credentials.

configuration_dictionary = {"logging": {"verbose": True}}
config = ubiq.ubiqConfiguration(config_file= "...", config_dict=configuration_dictionary)
# Pass the object to credentials
credentials = ubiq.credentials(config_obj=config)

Notes on Arguments:

• When passing a config_file and config_dict, the config file will be read first, and the config dict will override the file settings.
• When creating a credentials object, either a file path (config_file) or config_obj can be passed, but not both.

Event Reporting

The event_reporting section contains values to control how often the usage is reported.

• wake_interval indicates the number of seconds to sleep before waking to determine if there has been enough activity to report usage
• minimum_count indicates the minimum number of usage records that must be queued up before sending the usage
• flush_interval indicates the sleep interval before all usage will be flushed to server.
• trap_exceptions indicates whether exceptions encountered while reporting usage will be trapped and ignored or if it will become an error that gets reported to the application
• timestamp_granularity indicates the how granular the timestamp will be when reporting events. Valid values are
  • "MICROS"
    // DEFAULT: values are reported down to the microsecond resolution when possible
  • "MILLIS"
    // values are reported to the millisecond
  • "SECONDS"
    // values are reported to the second
  • "MINUTES"
    // values are reported to minute
  • "HOURS"
    // values are reported to hour
  • "HALF_DAYS"
    // values are reported to half day
  • "DAYS"
    // values are reported to the day

Key Caching

The key_caching section contains values to control how and when keys are cached.

• unstructured indicates whether keys will be cached when doing unstructured decryption. (default: true)
• structured indicates whether keys will be cached when doing structured encryption/decryption. (default: true)
• encrypt indicates if keys should be stored encrypted. If keys are encrypted, they will be harder to access via memory, but require them to be decrypted with each use. (default: false)
• ttl_seconds how many seconds before cache entries should expire and be re-retrieved (default: 1800)

Logging

The logging section contains values to control logging levels.

• verbose enables and disables logging output like event processing and caching.

IDP specific parameters

• provider indicates the IDP provider, either okta or entra
• ubiq_customer_id The UUID for this customer. Will be provided by Ubiq.
• idp_token_endpoint_url The endpoint needed to authenticate the user credentials, provided by Okta or Entra
• idp_tenant_id contains the tenant value provided by Okta or Entra
• idp_client_secret contains the client secret value provided by Okta or Entra

Example Configuration JSON

{
  "event_reporting": {
    "wake_interval": 1,
    "minimum_count": 2,
    "flush_interval": 2,
    "trap_exceptions": false,
    "timestamp_granularity" : "MICROS"
  },
  "key_caching":{
    "unstructured": true,
    "encrypt": false
  },
  "idp": {
    "provider": "okta",
    "ubiq_customer_id": "f6f.....08c5",
    "idp_token_endpoint_url": " https://dev-<domain>.okta.com/oauth2/v1/token",
    "idp_tenant_id": "0o....d7",
    "idp_client_secret": "yro.....2Db"
  }
}

Ubiq API Error Reference

Occasionally, you may encounter issues when interacting with the Ubiq API.