Can we encrypt only username using basic authentication in powershell

Question

Can we encrypt only username using basic authentication in PowerShell ? The below example shows for both username and password encrypted using basic authentication. or do we have anything that converts the username in base64 instead of passing as a plain text (hardcoded) likewise we use secure string for passwords.

$user = 'user'
$pass = 'pass'
$securePassword = (ConvertTo-SecureString $Password -AsPlainText -Forc
$pair = "$($user):$( $securePassword)"
$encodedCreds = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($pair))
$basicAuthValue = "Basic $encodedCreds"
 $Headers = @{
    Authorization = $basicAuthValue
}
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://whatever' -Headers $Headers

Answer 1

Hi @Swabha ,

something like this?

$userName = "Luigi"
$encryptedUserName = $userName | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
$encryptedUserName

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards
Andreas Baumgarten

Answer 2

Try this:

$barray  = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes("MyUserName")
$b64 = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($barray)

Answer 3

You have to adhere to internet standards.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Authentication

Basic authentication scheme
The "Basic" HTTP authentication scheme is defined in RFC 7617, which transmits credentials as user ID/password pairs, encoded using base64.

Security of basic authentication
As the user ID and password are passed over the network as clear text (it is base64 encoded, but base64 is a reversible encoding), the basic authentication scheme is not secure. HTTPS/TLS should be used with basic authentication. Without these additional security enhancements, basic authentication should not be used to protect sensitive or valuable information.