SAML Encrypted Response Queries

[paulm1677332]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of decrypting an EncryptedAssertion from an IDP. My current workflow is:-

1. Decrypt the symetric key from EncryptedKey element using RSA and my private key. This is giving me a string like �4Q��2�r���h` (doesn't look right, or is it?)

2. Use the key extracted above to decrypt the contents of the EncryptedData/CipherData/CipherValue element. This decryption is being done using AES. This is giving me "Invalid AES key length: 28 bytes" error.

The decoded xml looks like below:-

<saml2:EncryptedAssertion xmlns:saml2="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion">
	<xenc:EncryptedData xmlns:xenc="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#" Id="_1244b2f8ed8a27e5454455b4" Type="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element">
		<xenc:EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#aes128-cbc" xmlns:xenc="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#"/>
		<ds:KeyInfo xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
			<ds:RetrievalMethod Type="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#EncryptedKey" URI="#_81c4b6d490243e4e1cae5cf11e73102b"/>
		</ds:KeyInfo>
		<xenc:CipherData xmlns:xenc="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#">
			<xenc:CipherValue>VeBwqO/RmOs+aEtIsoZTlE8Gswa6+4z.....</xenc:CipherValue>
		</xenc:CipherData>
	</xenc:EncryptedData>
	
	<xenc:EncryptedKey xmlns:xenc="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#" Id="_81c4b6d490fdsfsdfdsf5453f11e73102b">
		<xenc:EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#rsa-1_5" xmlns:xenc="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#"/>
		<xenc:CipherData xmlns:xenc="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#">
			<xenc:CipherValue>Gbl5+MF8srC2yvQu4A6m2CUCDVu7V1....</xenc:CipherValue>
		</xenc:CipherData>
		<xenc:ReferenceList>
			<xenc:DataReference URI="#_1244b2f8ed8a27e5454455b4"/>
		</xenc:ReferenceList>
	</xenc:EncryptedKey>
</saml2:EncryptedAssertion>

 And my functions to decrypt the key and then the actual data is below:-

<cffunction name="decrypt_key" hint="decrypts a base64 encoded string with RSA to its value" access="public" returntype="string" output="false">
		<cfargument name="text" type="string" required="true" hint="the encrypted value as Base64 encoded string" />
		<cfargument name="key" type="any" required="true" />
		<cfargument name="key_type" type="string" default="private" hint="public or private">

		<cfscript>
			var local = structNew();
			/* Create a Java Cipher object and get a mode */
			var cipher = createObject('java', 'javax.crypto.Cipher').getInstance("RSA");
			
            if (NOT isObject(arguments.key)) {
                arguments.key = create_key_object_helper(arguments.key,arguments.key_type);
            }
			
            /* Initialize the cipher with the mode and the key */
            cipher.init(cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, arguments.key);

            /* Perform the decryption */
            local.decrypted = cipher.doFinal(toBinary(arguments.text));

			/* Convert the bytes back to a string and return it */
			return toString(local.decrypted,"UTF-8");
		</cfscript>
	</cffunction>

	<cffunction name="decrypt_string" hint="decrypts a base64 encoded string with AES to its value" access="public" returntype="string" output="false">
		<cfargument name="text" type="string" required="true" hint="the encrypted value as Base64 encoded string" />
		<cfargument name="key" type="any" required="true" />

		<cfscript>
			var local = structNew();
			/* Create a Java Cipher object and get a mode */
			var cipher = createObject('java', 'javax.crypto.Cipher').getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
			var secretkey = createObject('java', 'javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec').init(toBinary(arguments.key), javaCast( "string","AES"));
			
			/* Initialize the cipher with the mode and the key */
			var iv = createObject('java', 'javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec').init(ToBinary(arguments.text), 0, 16);

            cipher.init(cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, secretkey , iv);

            /* Perform the decryption */
            local.decrypted = cipher.doFinal(toBinary(arguments.text));

			/* Convert the bytes back to a string and return it */
			return toString(local.decrypted,"UTF-8");
		</cfscript>
	</cffunction>

 Can anyone shed some light on where I might be going wrong?

Thanks

[pete_freitag]

While you certaily could roll your own SAML implementation in CFML, if you are not a crypto expert I'd recommend using a library like java-saml https://github.com/onelogin/java-saml 

I've done a ColdFusion SAML integration with that library, and can recommend it. It takes care of a lot of the hard parts for you. 

You could also use the SAML functions in CF2021 which are built on that same java library. 

Pete Freitag

Foundeo Inc.

[paulm1677332]

Hi Pete,

I had looked at that library but was thinking it might be too elaborate for what I needed. I did look at some of the functions in there to try and see was I on the right track. I'm certainly no crypto expert and to me I think i'm pretty close to a working solution but I dont know enough to confirm i'm even decrypting the key properly. 

Thanks

[pete_freitag · Accepted solution]

The key should be 128 bits since the EncryptionMethod is  aes128-cbc, but I think where your problem is is that the cipher.doFinal returns a byte[] (byte array), which is binary, and then you are calling toString().

Try doing an arrayLen() on the result of your cipher.doFinal() value, it should be 16 (16*8 bits per byte of the array = 128).

Now instead of doing toString() on that result you probably want to be doing toBase64() which will encode it as a base64 string. You can probably use the builtin decrypt() function at this point, instead of your decrypt_string() function - you just need to make sure you are using CBC mode with AES again. 

Ok, I might have said too much 😉 still need to be careful a bunch of things: https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/SAML_Security_Cheat_Sheet.html 

Pete Freitag

Foundeo Inc.

[paulm1677332]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for all that I eventually got it working. I did use decrypt instead of the other function I had created. I had at some point tried to use that but went back to my other function. The one issue I had was with the algorithim. I got an error until I used "AES/CBC/NoPadding". 

Thank again