Overview

The Ubiq Security Python library provides convenient interaction with the Ubiq 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.

Installation

Using the package manager:

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:

git clone https://gitlab.com/ubiqsecurity/ubiq-python.git
cd ubiq-python
python3 setup.py install

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

Requirements

• Python 3.5+

Usage

Initialize

import ubiq_security as ubiq

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.

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

Read credentials from ~/.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
credentials = ubiq.configCredentials()

Use the following environment variables to set the API Key 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
credentials = ubiq.credentials()

Explicitly set the API Key Credentials

# This example is for development use only - Storing Ubiq API Key Credentials in source code is INSECURE!
credentials = ubiq.credentials(access_key_id = "...", secret_signing_key = "...", secret_crypto_access_key = "...")

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.

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 data into the encryption function. The encrypted data will be returned.

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.

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
• 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
• 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()

Structured Data Encryption

This library incorporates Ubiq Format Preserving Encryption (eFPE).

Requirements

• Please follow the same requirements as described above for the non-eFPE functionality.
• This library has dependencies on ubiqsecurity-fpe library available for download in the Ubiq GitHub/GitLab repository.

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 credentials, you'll need to enable the eFPE option. 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.fpe as ubiqfpe

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.

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

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

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

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 decrypted data will be returned.

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

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

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

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