Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Programmer's Cookbook

Asymmetrically Encrypt Data

Problem

You need to encrypt data in situations in which there is no shared secret key.

Solution

Use asymmetric encryption with the RSACryptoServiceProvider class.

Discussion

Asymmetric encryption allows you to exchange encrypted data between two parties without requiring a shared secret value. Asymmetric encryption introduces the concept of key pairs. The basic concept is that every user has both a private and a public key. Information encrypted with the public key can be decrypted only with the private key. The public key is made available to the whole world and can be transmitted freely over unsecured connections such as the Internet. The private key is carefully guarded. Thus, any user can make use of another user’s public ...