![\"Anti-Hacking](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Hacking_Lock.jpg\" "\\"Anti-Hacking\\"")
Recently, we had a client who needed a way to store
\nencrypted files on their server. As much as we would have liked to do a normal
\nupload form, this client needed to store sensitive user files on their website, which requires tighter security.<\/p>\n
Most websites that are dealing with sensitive user information include an SSL. SSL is short for “Secure Sockets Layer” this allows you to encrypt all the communications with your site. Any websites that are processing payments, or dealing with sensitive information are required to have one.<\/p>\n
You might be thinking, if my site has an SSL certificate, why would I need to encrypt the files? The When Now, back to the point, this solution was something that Back40 After doing research for PHP encryption, I found a few solutions, but not many This solution worked wonderfully, and is Recently, we had a client who needed a way to store encrypted files on their server. As much as we would have liked to do a normal upload form, this client needed to store sensitive user files on their website, which requires tighter security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.back40design.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nanswer is for an extra layer of security. Sure, an SSL would protect the data
\ntransmitted by<\/em> the website but it would not protect the data stored <\/em>on
\nthe server. If the server were to be compromised, we would know the data would be
\nsafe, as it is stored in an encrypted file on the server.<\/p>\n
\nyou encrypt a file essentially what you are doing is making a file
\nunreadable to anyone that does not know the key for that file. So as long
\nas you know the key, you are able to read the file. The first step to file encryption is to grab
\nthe contents of the file as it’s uploaded. Once we have the
\ncontents, it is encrypted with a unique key assigned to each user, so
\nthat only that user, upon retrieval, will be able to decrypt the file. Simple.<\/p>\n
\nhas never done before. We had to research file encryption with PHP extensively.<\/p>\n
\nwere tailored to what we needed. I took the knowledge that I learned from my research and
\nincorporated it into our final solution. What was this solution you may ask?
\nPHP\u2019s filter_stream_append. With this function, you are able to append a filter
\nto the filestream (the file that is being uploaded or downloaded) which allows
\nyou to encrypt and decrypt the file without ever storing a hard copy of
\nthe unencrypted file on your server<\/em>. This is important because if the unencrypted file was on the server, anyone with access could read it. Filter_stream_append can also append a filter that will apply to a filestream as it is being downloaded, so the only time it is unencrypted is when it is on the user’s computer.<\/span><\/span> There are many filters for this function, but the one I used was mcrypt, a basic library that allows you to encrypt various things.<\/p>\n
\ndefinitely something we will be able to use in the future. This is one of the
\nreasons our clients choose us for their custom projects, the solution was not
\nsomething you could just find, it had to be customized and tailored
\nto this clients specific needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"