AttrCipher

AttrCipher provides functionality to store encrypted attributes in ActiveRecord models. Values are encrypted and decrypted transparently.

Using the same secret for both encryption of plaintext and decryption of ciphertext, AttrCipher uses a method that is known as a symmetric-key algorithm, specifically the Advanced Encryption Standard Cipher-Block Chaining algorithm with a 256bit key (AES-256-CBC). However, you can provide your own cipher algorithm to AttrCipher, if you prefer. As a side note, 256bit AES is what the United States government uses to encrypt information at the Top Secret level.

Version 2.0.0+ Breaking Changes

Please note: AttrCipher is no longer automatically included in models anymore. You will need to either require attr_cipher/active_record in an initializer, or include AttrCipher in each model using the attr_cipher macro. This is to prevent pollution of ActiveRecord::Base. See usage section below for details.

To install add the following line to your Gemfile:

gem 'attr_cipher', '~> 2.0'

And run bundle install.

Runtime:

• activerecord (>= 4.2.6)
• activesupport (>= 4.2.6)

Development/Test:

• rake (~> 10.5.0)
• rspec (~> 3.7.0)
• sqlite3 (~> 1.3.13)
• simplecov (~> 0.16.1)
• factory_bot (~> 4.8.2)

Tested with Ruby 2.5.3p105 (2018-10-18 revision 65156) [x86_64-darwin18] against ActiveRecord 5.2.2 on macOS Mojave 10.14 (18A391).

AttrCipher uses OpenSSL to perform the cipher.

AttrCipher uses a global secret by default and it must be at least 100 characters or more. You can set the secret by setting AttrCipher.secret (e.g. $ openssl rand -hex 50).

# config/initializers/attr_cipher.rb
AttrCipher.secret = Rails.application.secrets.secret_key_base

You can also set the secret on a per attribute basis.

class User
  include AttrArray

  attr_cipher :api_key, secret: Rails.application.secrets.secret_key_base
end

Add the attribute as a column to your ActiveRecord migration with _cipher appended to the attribute name:

ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
  create_table :users do |t|
    t.text :api_key_cipher
  end
end

To include AttrCipher in all models, add the following to an initializer:

# config/initializers/attr_cipher.rb
require 'attr_cipher/active_record'

You then don't need to include AttrCipher in any model.

Attributes to be encrypted are declared using the attr_cipher class method in your model:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_cipher :api_key
end

In the above example, AttrCipher automatically creates the #api_key getter and #api_key= setter. The getter automatically decrypts the return value. The setter encrypts the value provided and stores it in the api_key_cipher column.

If you don't want to use the AES-256-CBC cipher, you can provide your own cipher object. Define an object that responds to encrypt(secret, value) and decrypt(secret, value) class methods:

module CustomCipher
  def self.encrypt(secret, value)
    value.to_s.reverse
  end
  def self.decrypt(secret, value)
    value.to_s.reverse
  end
end

Then pass the custom cipher object to the cipher option of the attr_cipher class method:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_cipher :api_key, cipher: CustomCipher
end

Sometimes we need to store values that are aren't strings. In order to encrypt other value types you can pass the serialize option with a value of true to the attr_cipher class method:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_cipher :api_key, serialize: true
end

Using the serialize option will cause the value to be serialized and deserialized using YAML during the encrypting and decrypting process. No changes are necessary to the column type in the table migration, it should remain as text.

Tests are written using Rspec, FactoryBot and Sqlite3. There are 17 examples with 100% code coverage.

To run the tests, execute the default rake task:

bundle exec rake

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request

I would like to thank Nando Vieira for his encrypt_attr gem from which some of the code was derived. The encrypt_attr gem is a better fit for non-ActiveRecord use.

This gem was written and is maintained by Jurgen Jocubeit, CEO and President Brightcommerce, Inc.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Copyright 2017-2019 Brightcommerce, Inc. All rights reserved.