AES Encryption in iOS 13 stopped working

Hello. My application uses AES 256 encryption to encrypt a string. The same code that was used before is generating a different result. This problem started when iOS 13 was released. And it happens only to applications that are shipped to the store or built with Xcode 11.


Here is the code used for the encryption:

- (NSData *)encrypt:(NSData *)plainText key:(NSString *)key  iv:(NSString *)iv {
    char keyPointer[kCCKeySizeAES256+2],// room for terminator (unused) ref: https://devforums.apple.com/message/876053#876053
    ivPointer[kCCBlockSizeAES128+2];
    BOOL patchNeeded;
    bzero(keyPointer, sizeof(keyPointer)); // fill with zeroes for padding
    
    patchNeeded= ([key length] > kCCKeySizeAES256+1);
    if(patchNeeded)
    {
        NSLog(@"Key length is longer %lu", (unsigned long)[[self md5:key] length]);
        key = [key substringToIndex:kCCKeySizeAES256]; // Ensure that the key isn't longer than what's needed (kCCKeySizeAES256)
    }
    
    //NSLog(@"md5 :%@", key);
    [key getCString:keyPointer maxLength:sizeof(keyPointer) encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    [iv getCString:ivPointer maxLength:sizeof(ivPointer) encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    
    if (patchNeeded) {
        keyPointer[0] = '\0';  // Previous iOS version than iOS7 set the first char to '\0' if the key was longer than kCCKeySizeAES256
    }
    
    NSUInteger dataLength = [plainText length];
    
    //see https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/System/Conceptual/ManPages_iPhoneOS/man3/CCryptorCreateFromData.3cc.html
    // For block ciphers, the output size will always be less than or equal to the input size plus the size of one block.
    size_t buffSize = dataLength + kCCBlockSizeAES128;
    void *buff = malloc(buffSize);
    
    size_t numBytesEncrypted = 0;
    //refer to http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/CommonCrypto/CommonCrypto-36064/CommonCrypto/CommonCryptor.h
    //for details on this function
    //Stateless, one-shot encrypt or decrypt operation.
    CCCryptorStatus status = CCCrypt(kCCEncrypt, /* kCCEncrypt, etc. */
                                     kCCAlgorithmAES128, /* kCCAlgorithmAES128, etc. */
                                     kCCOptionPKCS7Padding, /* kCCOptionPKCS7Padding, etc. */
                                     keyPointer, kCCKeySizeAES256, /* key and its length */
                                     ivPointer, /* initialization vector - use random IV everytime */
                                     [plainText bytes], [plainText length], /* input  */
                                     buff, buffSize,/* data RETURNED here */
                                     &numBytesEncrypted);
    if (status == kCCSuccess) {
        return [NSData dataWithBytesNoCopy:buff length:numBytesEncrypted];
    }
    
    free(buff);
    return nil;
}


- (NSString *) encryptPlainTextWith:(NSString *)plainText key:(NSString *)key iv:(NSString *)iv {
   
 return [[[[CryptLib alloc] init] encrypt:[plainText dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] key:[[CryptLib alloc] sha256:key length:32] iv:iv] base64EncodedStringWithOptions:0];
}

/**

* This function computes the SHA256 hash of input string
* @param key input text whose SHA256 hash has to be computed
* @param length length of the text to be returned
* @return returns SHA256 hash of input text
*/
- (NSString*) sha256:(NSString *)key length:(NSInteger) length{
    const char *s=[key cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
    NSData *keyData=[NSData dataWithBytes:s length:strlen(s)];
   
    uint8_t digest[CC_SHA256_DIGEST_LENGTH]={0};
    CC_SHA256(keyData.bytes, (CC_LONG)keyData.length, digest);
    NSData *out=[NSData dataWithBytes:digest length:CC_SHA256_DIGEST_LENGTH];
    NSString *hash=[out description];
    hash = [hash stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@""];
    hash = [hash stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"<" withString:@""];
    hash = [hash stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@">" withString:@""];
   
    if(length > [hash length])
    {
        return  hash;
    }
    else
    {
        return [hash substringToIndex:length];
    }
}


I would like to know if something in the code path has changed in the way it works. The method called to do the encryptions is "encryptPlainTextWith". Thanks in advance.

Answered by leonardo99 in 384486022

I found the solution for my case. The description in the NSData object has changed.


I stopped using the code and started using CryptoSwift AES but to match the old implementation the key needs to be transformed in the following way:

key = key.data(using: .ascii)!.sha256().toHexString().substring(0..<32)


Then you can use AES

let aes = try AES(key: key, iv: iv)
let encryptedData = Data(try aes.encrypt(Array(self.data(using: .utf8)!)))
let encryptedString = encryptedData.base64EncodedString()


Hope this helps! I lost 3 days to find the solution.


If some methods are missing, they are probably extensions of my project. But I think you can figure out how to implement them.

I am also having same problem, Kindly please let me know if you found any solution

Accepted Answer

I found the solution for my case. The description in the NSData object has changed.


I stopped using the code and started using CryptoSwift AES but to match the old implementation the key needs to be transformed in the following way:

key = key.data(using: .ascii)!.sha256().toHexString().substring(0..<32)


Then you can use AES

let aes = try AES(key: key, iv: iv)
let encryptedData = Data(try aes.encrypt(Array(self.data(using: .utf8)!)))
let encryptedString = encryptedData.base64EncodedString()


Hope this helps! I lost 3 days to find the solution.


If some methods are missing, they are probably extensions of my project. But I think you can figure out how to implement them.

AES Encryption in iOS 13 stopped working
 
 
Q