Encrypting files using RC4 encryption algorithm in C#

Question

My question is, how do I encrypt and decrypt a file in C# using the RC4 encryption algorithm?

This is not a duplicate of these questions:

• What is a Null

Answer 1

Disclaimer: While this code works, it might not be correctly implemented and/or secure.

Here's an example of file encryption/decryption using the BouncyCastle's RC4Engine:

// You encryption/decryption key as a bytes array
var key = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("secretpassword");
var cipher = new RC4Engine();
var keyParam = new KeyParameter(key);

// for decrypting the file just switch the first param here to false
cipher.Init(true, keyParam);

using (var inputFile = new FileStream(@"C:\path\to\your\input.file", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
using (var outputFile = new FileStream(@"C:\path\to\your\output.file", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write))
{
    // processing the file 4KB at a time.
    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024 * 4];
    long totalBytesRead = 0;
    long totalBytesToRead = inputFile.Length;
    while (totalBytesToRead > 0)
    {
        // make sure that your method is marked as async
        int read = await inputFile.ReadAsync(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);

        // break the loop if we didn't read anything (EOF)
        if (read == 0)
        {
            break;
        }

        totalBytesRead += read;
        totalBytesToRead -= read;

        byte[] outBuffer = new byte[1024 * 4];
        cipher.ProcessBytes(buffer, 0, read, outBuffer,0);
        await outputFile.WriteAsync(outBuffer,0,read);
    }
}

The resulting file was tested using this website and it appears to be working as expected.