Encryption/Decryption

Phalcon provides encryption facilities via the Phalcon\Crypt component. This class offers simple object-oriented wrappers to the openssl PHP’s encryption library.

By default, this component provides secure encryption using AES-256-CFB.

You must use a key length corresponding to the current algorithm. For the algorithm used by default it is 32 bytes.

Basic Usage

This component is designed to provide a very simple usage:

<?php

use Phalcon\Crypt;

// Create an instance
$crypt = new Crypt();

/**
 * Set the cipher algorithm.
 *
 * The `aes-256-gcm' is the preferable cipher, but it is not usable until the
 * openssl library is upgraded, which is available in PHP 7.1.
 *
 * The `aes-256-ctr' is arguably the best choice for cipher
 * algorithm in these days.
 */
$crypt->setCipher('aes-256-ctr');

/**
 * Set the encryption key.
 *
 * The `$key' should have been previously generated in a cryptographically safe way.
 *
 * Bad key:
 * "le password"
 *
 * Better (but still unsafe):
 * "#1dj8$=dp?.ak//j1V$~%*0X"
 *
 * Good key:
 * "T4\xb1\x8d\xa9\x98\x05\\\x8c\xbe\x1d\x07&[\x99\x18\xa4~Lc1\xbeW\xb3"
 *
 * Use your own key. Do not copy and paste this example key.
 */
$key = "T4\xb1\x8d\xa9\x98\x05\\\x8c\xbe\x1d\x07&[\x99\x18\xa4~Lc1\xbeW\xb3";

$text = 'This is the text that you want to encrypt.';

$encrypted = $crypt->encrypt($text, $key);

echo $crypt->decrypt($encrypted, $key);

You can use the same instance to encrypt/decrypt several times:

<?php

use Phalcon\Crypt;

// Create an instance
$crypt = new Crypt();

$crypt->setCipher('aes-256-ctr');

// Use your own keys!
$texts = [
    "T4\xb1\x8d\xa9\x98\x054t7w!z%C*F-Jk\x98\x05\\\x5c" => 'This is a secret text',
    "T4\xb1\x8d\xa9\x98\x05\\\x8c\xbe\x1d\x07&[\x99\x18\xa4~Lc1\xbeW\xb3" => 'This is a very secret',
];

foreach ($texts as $key => $text) {
    // Perform the encryption
    $encrypted = $crypt->encrypt($text, $key);

    // Now decrypt
    echo $crypt->decrypt($encrypted, $key);
}

Encryption Options

The following options are available to change the encryption behavior:

Name	Description
Cipher	The cipher is one of the encryption algorithms supported by openssl. You can see a list here

Example:

<?php

use Phalcon\Crypt;

// Create an instance
$crypt = new Crypt();

// Use blowfish
$crypt->setCipher('bf-cbc');

// Use your own key!
$key  = "T4\xb1\x8d\xa9\x98\x05\\\x8c\xbe\x1d\x07&[\x99\x18\xa4~Lc1\xbeW\xb3";
$text = 'This is a secret text';

echo $crypt->encrypt($text, $key);

Base64 Support

In order for encryption to be properly transmitted (emails) or displayed (browsers) base64 encoding is usually applied to encrypted texts:

<?php

use Phalcon\Crypt;

// Create an instance
$crypt = new Crypt();

// Use your own key!
$key  = "T4\xb1\x8d\xa9\x98\x05\\\x8c\xbe\x1d\x07&[\x99\x18\xa4~Lc1\xbeW\xb3";
$text = 'This is a secret text';

$encrypt = $crypt->encryptBase64($text, $key);

echo $crypt->decryptBase64($encrypt, $key);

Setting up an Encryption service

You can set up the encryption component in the services container in order to use it from any part of the application:

<?php

use Phalcon\Crypt;

$di->set(
    'crypt',
    function () {
        $crypt = new Crypt();

        // Set a global encryption key
        $crypt->setKey(
            "T4\xb1\x8d\xa9\x98\x05\\\x8c\xbe\x1d\x07&[\x99\x18\xa4~Lc1\xbeW\xb3"
        );

        return $crypt;
    },
    true
);

Then, for example, in a controller you can use it as follows:

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Controller;

class SecretsController extends Controller
{
    public function saveAction()
    {
        $secret = new Secrets();

        $text = $this->request->getPost('text');

        $secret->content = $this->crypt->encrypt($text);

        if ($secret->save()) {
            $this->flash->success(
                'Secret was successfully created!'
            );
        }
    }
}

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