#953 – Use a SecureString Object to Store Confidential Text Data

November 19, 2013 6 Comments

There can be security issues with storing confidential data in the System.String type, given that the string exists in plaintext in memory and you can’t explicitly control the amount of time during the string is present in memory.

The SecureString class provides a more secure way of storing confidential string data in memory.  SecureString is more secure than the String data type because:

  • It stores the string data in memory in an encrypted form
  • The encrypted data is stored in unmanaged memory and therefore not visible to the garbage collector
  • It allows appending, inserting or removing characters, but re-encrypts the data after modifying it
  • It is mutable, avoiding the need to create extra copies when modifying the secure string
  • It zeros out the contents of the string when the SecureString object is disposed (or finalized)
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#952 – Security Issues with Managed Strings

November 18, 2013 5 Comments

Confidential data stored in strings is vulnerable to attack during the time period that the string is stored in memory.

String data stored in managed strings in .NET is less secure than data stored in unmanaged strings.  Plaintext (non-encrypted) string data in managed strings has a longer period of time during which it is stored in memory.

Because managed strings exist on the garbage collected heap, you can’t explicitly destroy them.  The data will remain in memory until after the garbage collector has released the memory and it has been overwritten by some other object.

Since strings are immutable, you can’t overwrite the string data in a managed string object.  Writing new data results in a new instance being created.  The Garbage Collector may also create extra copies when it compacts memory.  The string data is less secure, due to the likelihood of there being multiple copies and its longer lifetime.

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