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Reasons to Avoid Mcrypt

• smileysteve 11y ago
  As a note, Laravel 4.2 uses mcrypt by standard. openssl is an option
  • sarciszewski 11y ago
    https://github.com/bcit-ci/CodeIgniter/blob/3a9eb39f61b10b3f86e50f4cd39ca0d9f010bac2/system/libraries/Encryption.php#L208-L210 https://github.com/bcit-ci/CodeIgniter/blob/3a9eb39f61b10b3f... CodeIgniter prioritizes OpenSSL over Mcrypt. I swear I did not tip their devs off before I wrote it, Andrey Andreev must have come to a similar conclusion on his own.
• jmspring 11y ago
  So, the arguments I see are: - abandonware (fine), bugs, yes, but doesn't invalidate the case if you know the library and the warts - design flaws make it hard to write correct code, it's crypto, you better know what you are doing regardless of the library - algorithm identifies are confusing, see point above.
  • sarciszewski 11y ago
    From the article: Although it's possible to provide a relatively secure cryptography library that builds on top of mcrypt (the earlier version of defuse/php-encryption did), switching your code to openssl will provide better security, performance, maintainability, and portability. The argument here isn't that mcrypt is doomed/inherently vulnerable, it's two-fold: 1. OpenSSL is a better choice, especially if you're an average PHP developer who is ignoring cryptographers' advice not to deploy your own crypto implementations 2. If a critical bug is found in libmcrypt, since nobody is maintaining it anymore, it is unlikely to get fixed. You are much safer using a library where patches are still being merged. I hope this makes more sense.