How to store the AES Rijndael generated Key to the database?

Question

Hi,

When creating the instance, the KEY and IV are generated for me.

 RijndaelManaged myRijndael = new RijndaelManaged();

How can I store the Key in my database or web.config file?
And in what format?

Because I will have to load the key when trying to decrypt the encrypted string obviously.

thanks for your help, a little lost on this topic.

Answer 1

When storing binary as text (regardless if to a text file or a database field), the Base64 encoding is the way to go.

RijndaelManaged myRijndael = new RijndaelManaged();

// to Base64
string keyb64 = Convert.ToBase64String(myRijndael.Key);

// reverse
myRijndael.Key = Convert.FromBase64String(keyb64);

The Base64 string is safe to store anywhere you like.