A set of cryptographic tools exposed in a simple user interface for most common usages. We also provide a set of guidelines for common cryptographic uses tying them to the methods provided in this toolkit.

We create this simple toolkit in order to enable users exploit cryptographic techniques for data security without actually having to know about them. We provide simple APIs for common use scenarios using the Python cryptography module.

You should have the Python cryptography module installed in the environment you are working. It you have pip installed in your system, this can be installed using:

[sudo] pip install cryptography

We recommend the use of virtualenv to create a separate virtual environment for your project. It can be installed using:

[sudo] pip install virtualenv

We are currently maintaining a single module under this project for easy import into your project. Download this project and then import the crypto_toolkit module:

import crypto_toolkit

It currently has the following functions to handle passwords:

• generate_key_from_password
• verify_key_from_password
• generate_storage_hash_from_password
• verify_storage_hash_from_password

The names of the functions are intuitive. The above functions are necessary since it is never advisable to store passwords. Any password must immediately converted into a key using a key derivation function (kdfs). Based on our explorations, we found that the common practice is to use PBKDF2 for key generation, that is use the password to derive a key that can be used further with various encryption techniques, and scrypt to generate hashes of passwords that can be stored for password verification.