Security

This article explains how to ensure information about the RadEditor configuration is secure and non-readable. Its transmission between the client and the server must be encrypted and impossible to decode, so the data cannot be used by a malicious entity in an attack against the server.

Configuration information includes dialog settings and upload configuration.

There are three appSettings keys you should add to your web.config to ensure information security with the dialogs:

• set a custom Telerik.Web.UI.DialogParametersEncryptionKey.

• set a custom Telerik.AsyncUpload.ConfigurationEncryptionKey

• set a custom Telerik.Upload.ConfigurationHashKey

If you do not set custom keys, default (hardcoded) values are used to encrypt/decrypt the information.

As of R2 2017 SP1, hardcoded keys are not used anymore. Instead, standard .NET methods are used for encryption. Nevertheless, you should still set your own unique custom keys. You can use the IIS MachineKey Validation Key generator to get them (make sure to avoid the ,IsolateApps portion).

To add a layer of security on the user actions from the file browser dialogs (such as Image Manager), follow the RadFileExplorer Security article. To attach to the ItemCommand event, you must use the FileBrowser and MobileImageManager dialogs as external dialogs and add the file with the event handler and business logic to them. You can find an example in the item-command-in-external-dialogs.zip archive.

You can encrypt the appSettings section in the web.config.

DialogParametersEncryptionKey

To provide secure encryption, we strongly advise that you set a custom encryption key for Telerik.Web.UI.DialogParametersEncryptionKey:

<appSettings>
    <add key="Telerik.Web.UI.DialogParametersEncryptionKey" value="YOUR-THIRD-UNIQUE-STRONG-RANDOM-VALUE-UNIQUE-TO-YOUR-APP&" />
</appSettings>

ConfigurationEncryptionKey

To provide secure encryption, we strongly advise that you set a custom encryption key for Telerik.AsyncUpload.ConfigurationEncryptionKey:

<appSettings>
    <add key="Telerik.AsyncUpload.ConfigurationEncryptionKey" value="YOUR-FIRST-UNIQUE-STRONG-RANDOM-VALUE-UNIQUE-TO-YOUR-APP&" />
</appSettings>

ConfigurationHashKey

As of R1 2017, the Encrypt-then-MAC approach is implemented, in order to improve the integrity of the encrypted temporary and target folders.

The additional Telerik.Upload.ConfigurationHashKey key is used to hash the encrypted text. The value returned from the client is checked in the upload handler for integrity. If the hashing attempt is incorrect, a new CryptographicException("The hash is not valid!"); exception will be thrown.

<appSettings>
    <add key="Telerik.Upload.ConfigurationHashKey" value="YOUR-SECOND-UNIQUE-STRONG-RANDOM-VALUE-UNIQUE-TO-YOUR-APP&" />
</appSettings>

Prevent Cross-site Scripting (XSS)

Please check out the dedicated Prevent Cross-site Scripting (XSS) article to learn how to enable the anti-XSS mechanism of RadEditor.

See Also

• web.config Settings Overview

• Prevent Cross-site Scripting (XSS)