CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#xamarinmemory-managementxamarin.iosgarbage-collection
Shiva
Shiva

Reputation: 575

How to securely erase sensitive information from memory

Security penetration tools are able to get sensitive information from Memory dump. As far as I know setting null to any variable should be fine I guess ... But I am unable to call dispose any C# varialbes.

Basically I am planing to store everything in keychain and whenever I get the value and after using I willl be setting null to clear off...but why dispose couldn't be called ... I don't know

If there are any better way to handle sensitive data variables in xamarin kindly let me know.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 872

Answers (1)

Greg
Greg

Reputation: 11480

The Dispose() is meant to be called on those objects that implement a destructor or finalizer. To hide sensitive data that is lingering, I'm assuming you mean string values. You could implement SecureString. This will convert the area of memory where your string is stored into cipher text.

Proper usage is all over Stack Overflow for the SecureString. But not sure if it is supported via Xamarin. At least while it is cipher text, it will not be exposed via a memory dump. I warn you, it is a weird api to implement.

Upvotes: 2

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