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EncryptForm(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation EncryptForm(3)

CGI::EncryptForm - Implement trusted stateful CGI Form Data using cryptography.

  use CGI::EncryptForm;
  
  my $cfo = new CGI::EncryptForm(secret_key => 'my secret');
  
  my $hashref = { username => 'joe', password => 'test' };

  my $encrypted_string = $cfo->encrypt($hashref);
  if (!defined($encrypted_string)) {
    print $cfo->error();
    return;
  }

  my $newhashref = $cfo->decrypt($encrypted_string);
  if (!defined($newhashref)) {
    print $cfo->error();
    return;
  }

  print $newhashref->{'username'};

This modules requires the following perl modules:

Digest::SHA1, Crypt::HCE_SHA and Storable

Many CGI programmers take for granted the validity of stateful CGI form data.

Im talking about the common scenario where you present a form to the browser, the user fills in the form, you verify the form values, store them in the next form as hidden fields, the user fills in another form, the script appends these results to the next form in hidden fields and so on.

Using hidden form fields is one mechanism where by CGI scripts can maintain state in the process of collecting information from the user.

Unfortunately, it is also one of the weakest to implement because the CGI script must trust the hidden form fields and there values, provided by the users browser. At some point in time the CGI program does something with this stateful information. To be completely sure the hidden fields haven't been altered along the way and thus rendered initial verification checks useless, the programmer must continually verify all new form fields and previous state (encapsulated in hidden form fields) to be sure the desired constraints are met. This process of verification becomes tedious to program especially if there are many forms required to produce a final result.

To tackle this problem I created CGI::EncryptForm, where by instead of including state in hidden form fields verbatim, we use SHA1 encryption algorithm to provide a satisfactory level of trust between the users browser and the CGI script.

An object is created with a secret key defined by the CGI script. The objects encrypt() method is called with a perl data structure, which in the context of CGI scripts would normally contain key/value pairs. The encrypt() method returns an encrypted string. The encrypted string is stored in a hidden form field. The user fills in the form. The CGI script processes the form, extracts the encrypted string from the hidden form field, decrypts the string and returns the original data structure. Further results from the form are added to the data structure, then it is encrypted again and stored in the next form as a hidden field. This process continues until the CGI script has all the desired information and is ready to process it. To process the results, the CGI script decrypts the encrypted string from the last hidden form field, which contains the collective state of all previous form input.

Along the way, the users input was verified only once. The fact that state was encrypted and therefore trusted, renders the process of continually verifying all state for each form processed, unnecessary.

new CGI::EncryptForm([secret_key => $s [, usecharset => $a]])
Create a new CGI::EncryptForm object. All of the paramaters are optional. $s specifies the secret key to use during encryption/decryption. $a specifies whether to enable (1) or disable (0) the character set encoding/decoding of the encrypted/decrypted result. By default this is enabled.
encrypt($hashref)
Encrypt the data structure and return an encrypted string. $hashref must be a reference to an associative array supported by the Storable module. If called with no arguement, returns the previous encrypted string.

Upon error, the method returns undef and sets error().

decrypt($encrypted_string)
Decrypt the encrypted string and return a reference to an associative array. $encrypted_string must be a scalar previously generated by encrypt(). If called with no arguement, returns the previous reference.

Upon error, the method returns undef and sets error(). If the encrypted string is tampered with the decryption routine should fail with undef, but this is ultimately dependant on the strength of SHA1 digests.

secret_key($secret)
Sets the secret key for use during encryption/decryption. This method is analogues to the secret_key paramater when creating a CGI::EncryptForm object. If called with no $secret it returns the current secret key or undef if undefined.

Upon error, the method returns undef and sets error().

usecharset(1)
Enables or disables the character set encoding/decoding of encrypted/decrypted strings. This method is analogues to the usecharset paramater when creating a CGI::EncryptForm object. By default usecharset is enabled (1) and should be ignored unless you use this module in non CGI programs. The encode/decode routine applies the default or user defined (see charset()) character set to encode/decode the encrypted string, before returning to the caller.
charset($arrayref)
Sets the character set which will be used to encode/decode the encrypted/decrypted string. This method accepts a single array reference that must contain a character set from 0 to 255, where by each element must be 2 characters and UNIQUE. e.g.

  charset(qw[/aA aB aC aD ... /])
    

If this method is not called with your own character set, a default character set will be used which produces suitable output to store the result of the encrypt() method in form fields, URL's and cookies.

Upon error, the method returns undef and sets error().

error()
Returns the last error as a scalar. You would normally read this if any method returns undef. error() is always cleared for each method that executes successfully.

This example illustrates the use of CGI::EncryptForm in combination with CGI.pm to maintain stateful information in a multi-form CGI script.

  #!/usr/local/bin/perl

  use CGI::EncryptForm;
  use CGI;
  use vars qw($cgi $cfo);

  $cgi = new CGI();
  $cfo = new CGI::EncryptForm(secret_key => 'blah');

  print $cgi->header(), $cgi->start_html(), $cgi->start_form();

  if (defined $cgi->param('enc')) {
      form3();
  }
  elsif (defined $cgi->param('something')) {
      form2();
  }
  else {
      form1();
  }

  print $cgi->end_html(), $cgi->end_form();

  sub form1 {

    print "<h1>form1</h1>",
          "Type something and we will remember it: ",
          $cgi->textfield('something'), $cgi->submit();
  }

  sub form2 {

    print "<h1>form2</h1>",
          $cgi->hidden(-name=>'enc', value=>$cfo->encrypt({ $cgi->Vars })),
          "Now click here and I will tell you what you typed based on ",
          "the encrypted hidden form field, which you would normally ",
          "only see if you view the HTML source. For the sake of this ",
          "demonstration the encrypted field is included below.<p>",
          $cfo->encrypt(), "<p>",
          "Before proceeding with this form I suggest you take note of ",
          "what the encrypted field looks like, then click the back ",
          "button and resubmit the previous form with the same value ",
          "again. What you will notice is the encrypted field will ",
          "change. This is because the SHA encryption algorithm is ",
          "based on a secret key and a random key. In the module we ",
          "take care of generating a unique random key for each ",
          "invocation of the encryption routine, which is why a ",
          "distinct encrypted string is produced each time.",
          "<p>", $cgi->submit();
  }

  sub form3 {

    my $hashref = $cfo->decrypt($cgi->param('enc'));
    if (!defined($hashref)) {
      print $cfo->error();
      return;
    }
    print "<h1>form3</h1>",
          "Previously in the first form you typed:<p>", $hashref->{something},
          "<p>We reproduced this data by decrypting the hidden form ",
          "field called 'enc', which was passed to us from the previous ",
          "form. You may like to try and tamper with the hidden form ",
          "field in form2, to see if you can alter the result of the ",
          "data as it originally flows from form 1 to form 3. Good luck";
  }

CGI::EncryptForm is not limited to form fields. The encrypted result can be stored in cookies and URL's as well. Personally though, I discourage this because your more likely to exceed size limitations with various web browsers and servers.

None that I know of.

None.

Copyright 1999, Peter Marelas. All rights reserved.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Bug reports and comments to maral@phase-one.com.au.

Thanks to the authors of these fine perl modules Storable, Digest::SHA1 and Crypt::HCE_SHA.

Storable, Digest::SHA1, Digest::HCE_SHA1
2022-04-09 perl v5.32.1

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