9/3/2018 Working with Passwords, Secure Strings and Credentials in Windows PowerShell - TechNet Articles - United States (English)

tes (English) - TechNet Wiki

Working with Passwords, Secure Strings and Credentials in

Windows PowerShell
Table of Contents
Introduction
Create SecureString
Create PSCredentials
Extract password from PSCredentials
Extract password from SecureString
Saving encrypted password to file or registry
Best Practices
TechNet Gallery

Introduction
Passwords in PowerShell can be stored in a number of different forms:
String - Plain text strings. Used to store any text and of course these can store passwords too. Strings are unsecure, they are stored in memory as plain text and most
cmdlets will not accept passwords in this form.
System.Security.SecureString - This type is like the usual string, but its content are encrypted in memory. It uses reversible encrypting so the password can be
decrypted when needed, but only by the principal that encrypted it.
System.Management.Automation.PSCredential - PSCredential is class that is composed of username (string) and password (SecureString). This is type that most
cmdlets require for specifying credentials.

Converting from one type to another is not always an obvious task. The suggested methods are as follows;

Create SecureString
Type the password in an interactive prompt
001 $SecurePassword = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter password" -AsSecureString

Convert from existing plaintext variable

001 $PlainPassword = "P@ssw0rd"
002
$SecurePassword = $PlainPassword | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force

Create PSCredentials
Assuming that you have password in SecureString form in $SecurePassword variable:
001 $UserName = "Domain\User"
002
$Credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential `
003
-ArgumentList $UserName, $SecurePassword

Extract password from PSCredentials

The password can be easily obtained from PSCredential object using GetNetworkCredential method:
001 $PlainPassword = $Credentials.GetNetworkCredential().Password

Extract password from SecureString

If you have just simple SecureString with the password, you can construct a PSCredentials object and extract password by using the previous method. Another method
is this:
 
001 $BSTR = `
002
003
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($SecurePassword)
$PlainPassword = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto($BSTR)

 
Saving encrypted password to file or registry
If you need to store password for script that runs in unattended mode by scheduler or using some other ways, it possible to save it to file system or registry in
encrypted form. It is like the string representation of SecureString. Only user that created this line can decrypt and use it, so when saving this value, use the same
account that the script or service will use.
Converting SecureString variable to secure plain text representation
001 $SecureStringAsPlainText = $SecurePassword | ConvertFrom-SecureString

$SecureStringAsPlainText looks like this "ea32f9d30de3d3dc7fcd86a6a8f587ed9" (actually longer) and can be easily stored in file, registry property or any other
storage. When script will need to obtain secure string object it can be done this way:
001 $SecureString = $SecureStringAsPlainText | ConvertTo-SecureString

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4546.working-with-passwords-secure-strings-and-credentials-in-windows-powershell.aspx 1/2
9/3/2018 Working with Passwords, Secure Strings and Credentials in Windows PowerShell - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki

Best Practices
Where possible do not ask for passwords and try to use integrated Windows authentication.
When it is not possible or when specifying different credentials is useful, cmdlets should accept passwords only in the form of PSCredentials or (if username is
not needed) as SecureString, but not plain text.
If you need to ask user for credential, use Get-Credential cmdlet. It uses a standard Windows function to receive password in consistent and secure manner
without storing it in memory as clear text.
Credentials should be passed to external system also in most secure way possible, ideally as PSCredentials too.
Password should not be saved to disk, registry or other not protected storage as plain text. Use plaintext representation of SecureString when possible.

TechNet Gallery
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Execute-PowerShell-Script-38881dce

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4546.working-with-passwords-secure-strings-and-credentials-in-windows-powershell.aspx 2/2