![]() ![]() However, other ways I use to remember things with PowerShell, is to build functions that remember for me. I don’t remember things I can look up most of the time. I often forget the full syntax with commands that I do not have to use often. You can generate a key with random bytes, and then use that each time you need to read that password into your script. We just need to generate a “Byte” key and pass that into the command. So to make this automated and mobile, to use on any server in your environment, we need to utilize the “-Key” parameter. If you try to convert the contents of that file on another server you will get an error about an invalid key. So if you let DPAPI do the encryption, then it goes to reason that only that single machine can decrypt it. If you are not familiar with this API it is basically the operating system-level data protection (encryption) on each server. If you do not provide a value (Byte) for this parameter the command will utilize the DPAPI (Windows Data Protection API) to do the encryption. Valid key lengths are 16, 24, and 32 bytes. Specifies the encryption key to use when converting a secure string into an encrypted standard string. Why is that you ask? There is a parameter for both commands, “-Key”, that is not required, but as stated in the help documentation: While this process would work for a single server, it does not if you need to use this password across multiple servers. This will show the password with asterisks as the user types, and will return a SecureString object. In order to get the SecureString object you just need to use the “-AsSecureString” parameter. Read-Host is useful to prompt for the password at the command line, especially if you don’t need the username as well. Interactive commands mean you are going to prompt the user to enter some bit of information, like a password. I would also recommend using “Remove-Variable” to ensure the variable you capture the password in is cleared from memory once you are done with it. Anytime you use the methods below they need to be locally scoped to the specific function using it. It is best to get into the habit of cleaning up at the end. That is all to say you just need to understand that while the methods being shown do work for meeting certain security requirements, understand the risk of leaving variables like this in memory once your script completes. You can pull the property to do that without having to necessarily show it in your script as plain text. This is there because there could be times you work with commands or third party executables that you need to pass in that password as plain text. This method has four properties: Domain, Password, SecurePassword, and UserName. This object contains properties on a particular method, that will return the password back as plain text. When you work with PSCredential objects you will find that there is a way to read that password back as plain text. I will go over these below and provide a few examples. PowerShell offers a few different options to hide the password. When you are working with passwords in PowerShell it is best to obfuscate your password to protect against those folks with wandering eyes. Based on how you do this it can pose a security risk in most environments, because you either pass in (or store) your password in plain text. In order to even build a SecureString means you have to provide a password. You cannot just take a string and declare it as a SecureString. The username is pretty obvious, but that password is not just a string value. ![]() The PSCredential object requires two arguments: Each method generally lines up to two different scenarios: interactive or automated. You have a few different ways to go about it based on your needs. Commands that utilize a “-Credential” parameter will generally require this type to be passed in. ![]() I will go over a few options that are commonly used, but first lets discuss what makes up a PSCredential. This object in PowerShell can be made a few different ways based on your needs. While some only need the password, some need the full object to authenticate a user. The majority of commands for PowerShell that support remote connections to servers (WMI, CIM, Invoke-Command, etc.), offer the ability to pass in a credential. You can then utilize that information to build what is known as a PSCredential. Do you have processes or scripts that require you to provide a password? Against the desires of your security officer, do you have to save those passwords in plain text, in your scripts? PowerShell offers a way that you can store a password or prompt the user for the information. ![]()
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