Edit

Example C Program: Receiving a Signed and Encrypted Message

  • Article

The following example works in conjunction with the program in Example C Program: Sending and Receiving a Signed and Encrypted Message. It reads the signed and encrypted message, then decrypts and verifies the message.

To decrypt and verify the message, the private key of the message's intended receiver must be available. The certificate of the signer is included in the message BLOB read in from the file.

This example illustrates the following tasks:

  • Opening and closing system certificate stores.
  • Reading a CERT_NAME_BLOB from a file.
  • Initializing data structures needed to decrypt and verify a message.
  • Calling a CryptoAPI function to find the required size of a buffer, allocating the buffer of the required size, and calling the CryptoAPI function again to fill the buffer. For more information, see Retrieving Data of Unknown Length.

This example uses the following CryptoAPI functions:

This example uses MyHandleError to exit the program gracefully in case of any failure. The code MyHandleError is included with the sample and can also be found along with other auxiliary functions under General Purpose Functions.

//-------------------------------------------------------------------
// Example C Program: 
// Reads a signed and encrypted message, then decrypts and verifies 
// the message.
#pragma comment(lib, "crypt32.lib")

#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <Wincrypt.h>

#define MY_ENCODING_TYPE (PKCS_7_ASN_ENCODING | X509_ASN_ENCODING)

//-------------------------------------------------------------------
//    This example uses the function MyHandleError, a simple error
//    handling function, to print an error message to the standard  
//    error (stderr) file and exit the program. 
//    For most applications, replace this function with one 
//    that does more extensive error reporting.

void MyHandleError(LPTSTR psz)
{
    _ftprintf(stderr, TEXT("An error occurred in the program. \n"));
    _ftprintf(stderr, TEXT("%s\n"), psz);
    _ftprintf(stderr, TEXT("Error number %x.\n"), GetLastError());
    _ftprintf(stderr, TEXT("Program terminating. \n"));
    exit(1);
} // End of MyHandleError

BYTE* DecryptAndVerify(DWORD cbBlob, BYTE *pbBlob)
{
    //---------------------------------------------------------------
    //  Declare and initialize local variables.

    HCERTSTORE hCertStore;
    CRYPT_DECRYPT_MESSAGE_PARA DecryptPara;
    CRYPT_VERIFY_MESSAGE_PARA VerifyPara;
    DWORD dwSignerIndex = 0;
    BYTE *pbDecrypted;
    DWORD cbDecrypted;

    //---------------------------------------------------------------
    //   Open the certificate store.

    if ( !(hCertStore = CertOpenStore(
        CERT_STORE_PROV_SYSTEM,
        0,
        NULL,
        CERT_SYSTEM_STORE_CURRENT_USER,
        L"my")))
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("The MY store could not be opened."));
    }

    //---------------------------------------------------------------
    //   Initialize the needed data structures.

    DecryptPara.cbSize = sizeof(CRYPT_DECRYPT_MESSAGE_PARA);
    DecryptPara.dwMsgAndCertEncodingType = MY_ENCODING_TYPE;
    DecryptPara.cCertStore = 1;
    DecryptPara.rghCertStore = &hCertStore;

    VerifyPara.cbSize = sizeof(CRYPT_VERIFY_MESSAGE_PARA);
    VerifyPara.dwMsgAndCertEncodingType = MY_ENCODING_TYPE;
    VerifyPara.hCryptProv = 0;
    VerifyPara.pfnGetSignerCertificate = NULL;
    VerifyPara.pvGetArg = NULL;
    pbDecrypted = NULL;
    cbDecrypted = 0;

    //---------------------------------------------------------------
    //     Call CryptDecryptAndVerifyMessageSignature a first time
    //     to determine the needed size of the buffer to hold the 
    //     decrypted message. 
    //     Note: The sixth parameter is NULL in this call to 
    //     get the required size of the bytes string to contain the 
    //     decrypted message.

    if(!(CryptDecryptAndVerifyMessageSignature(
        &DecryptPara,
        &VerifyPara,
        dwSignerIndex,
        pbBlob,
        cbBlob,
        NULL,           
        &cbDecrypted,
        NULL,
        NULL)))
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("Failed getting size."));
    }

    //---------------------------------------------------------------
    //    Allocate memory for the buffer to hold the decrypted
    //    message.

    if(!(pbDecrypted = (BYTE *)malloc(cbDecrypted)))
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("Memory allocation failed."));
    }

    if(!(CryptDecryptAndVerifyMessageSignature(
        &DecryptPara,
        &VerifyPara,
        dwSignerIndex,
        pbBlob,
        cbBlob,
        pbDecrypted,
        &cbDecrypted,
        NULL,
        NULL)))
    {
        pbDecrypted = NULL;
    }

    //---------------------------------------------------------------
    //  Close the certificate store.

    CertCloseStore(hCertStore, 0);

    //---------------------------------------------------------------
    //    Return the decrypted string or NULL.

    return pbDecrypted;

} // End of DecryptandVerify.

BYTE* ReadBlob(DWORD *pcbBlob)
{
    FILE *hInputFile;
    BYTE *pbBlob;

    // Open the input file and read in the signed and encrypted BLOB.
    // This file would be created by a program such as the example 
    // program "Example C Program: Sending and Receiving a Signed and 
    // Encrypted Message" in the Platform Software Development Kit (SDK).
    // Change the path name for this file if it is not in the same
    // directory as the executable.

    if( !(hInputFile= _tfopen(TEXT("sandvout.txt"), TEXT("rb"))))
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("Input file was not opened.\n"));
    }

    fread(
        pcbBlob,
        sizeof(DWORD),
        1,
        hInputFile);

    if(ferror(hInputFile))
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("The size of the BLOB was not read.\n"));
    }

    if(!(pbBlob = (BYTE *) malloc(*pcbBlob)))
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("Memory allocation failed."));
    }

    fread(
        pbBlob,
        *pcbBlob,
        1,
        hInputFile);

    if(ferror(hInputFile))
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("The bytes of the BLOB were not read.\n"));
    }

    fclose(hInputFile);

    return pbBlob;
}  // End of ReadBlob.

//-------------------------------------------------------------------
//   Main calls ReadBlob to read in the signed and encrypted message.
//   It then calls DecryptAndVerify which, if successful, decrypts
//   and verifies the message. 
//   The function main prints the returned, decrypted message
//   if the verification and decryption are successful.

//   Note: The file with the signed and encrypted file must be
//   available, and the user running this program must have access to
//   the private key of the intended message receiver.

//   Also note that this program does not use CryptAcquireContext.
   
void main()
{
    BYTE *pReturnMessage;
    BYTE *pbBlob;
    DWORD cbBlob;

    if((pbBlob = ReadBlob(&cbBlob)) == NULL)
    {
        MyHandleError(TEXT("Read BLOB did not return the BLOB. "));
    }

    if(pReturnMessage = DecryptAndVerify(cbBlob, pbBlob))
    {
        _tprintf(TEXT
                ("    The returned, verified message is ->\n%s\n"), 
            pReturnMessage);
        _tprintf(TEXT("    The program executed without error.\n"));
    }
    else
    {
        _tprintf(TEXT("Verification failed.\n"));
    }

} // End of main.