Encrypting or Decrypting Web.config properties

If we are using applications in our internal servers with security then it’s ok. If we deploy our applications in shared host environment then we have chance to arise security problems to avoid these problems from asp.net 2.0 provided built in protected configuration model functionality to encrypt or decrypt few sections of web.config file those are
 
RSAProtectedConfigurationProvider: This is default provider and uses the RSA public key encryption algorithm to encrypt and decrypt data.
 
DataProtectionConfgurationProvider: This provider uses windows data protection application programming interface to encrypt and decrypt the data.
 
The encrypting and decrypting of connection strings in web.config file will do by using aspnet_regiis.exe command line tool and code behind.

Before encrypting the connectionString the web.config looks like this:

Steps to Encrypt your connectionStrings:

1)  Go to All Programs>Microsoft Visual Studio 2012> Visual studio tools> Developer command prompt for VS2012.

2  2)  Right click on it and choose run as administrator.

3  3)  Type the following command in the prompt:

Here –pe indicates that the application is built as IIS based site. Second argument connectionStrings is the name of configuration section needs to be encrypted. The Third argument -app indicates virtual directory and last argument is the name of virtual directory where application is deployed. 

4)  And execute it your prompt you will see succeeded message as follows: 

1  5)  Now go and browse your web.config file which looks something like this:

                      Here you may doubt that “What if I want to use the connection string in cs file”. The .net framework automatically decrypts it.

Steps to Decrypt connectionStrings:

1  1)  Go to All Programs>Microsoft Visual Studio 2012> Visual studio tools> Developer command prompt for VS2012.

2  2)  Right click on it and choose run as administrator.

3  3)  Type the following command in the prompt:

 4)  And execute it your prompt you will see succeeded message as follows:

1  5)  Now go and browse your web.config file which looks something like this: