We are happy to announce the immediate availability of new SQLCipher Commercial Edition packages for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Runtime 8/8.1. Over the past year, interest and adoption of these platforms has increased dramatically, and SQLCipher is now able to provide a quick and easy way to secure application data. This is particularly exciting because SQLCipher libraries now offer a common, interoperable, secure database solution across major mobile, tablet, and desktop platforms.

Application Integration

The new SQLCipher libraries integrate seamlessly within Visual Studio. The client API based is on the popular sqlite-net library that provides a compact ORM and both synchronous and asynchronous interfaces. As with other integrations, applications use the high level API to manipulate data using the ORM and/or SQL, while SQLCipher works behind the scenes to manage all aspects of security, including key derivation and on-the-fly encryption and decryption of the database pages.

This architecture supports rapid implementation on both platforms, and applications that already use SQLite on Windows Phone or Windows Runtime can be converted to SQLCipher in as little as a few hours. Application using these new SQLCipher libraries for Windows Runtime can easily inter-operate and access SQLCipher databases generated on other platforms, including iOS, Android, and Windows Desktop. Furthermore, both packages include CipherCare Plus, providing prioritized and confidential email support directly from the SQLCipher development team to help integrators get up and running quickly.

Technical Details

SQLCipher for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Runtime are based on the latest version of SQLCipher 3, and take advantage of many of the newest features. For example, porting SQLCipher to run on Windows Phone 8 and Windows Runtime introduced some unique challenges. On some other platforms, SQLCipher relies on OpenSSL for underlying cryptographic operations, however, it is not easily supported on either Windows Phone 8 or Windows Runtime. Thus, the new packages take advantage of SQLCipher's pluggable crypto providers, allowing the use of LibTomCrypt's AES implementation and the Fortuna PRNG. Particular care is taken to seed the PRNG entropy pool with a rich, externally sourced cryptographically secure random data block, which is feed into the the crypto provider using the new PRAGMA cipher_add_random. Finally, databases created using SQLCipher benefit from strong default key derivation using 64,000 iterations of PBKDF2 to protect against brute force and dictionary based attacks.

Get Started

SQLCipher continues to support critical application developer requirements for easy to use data storage security. If you are interested in using SQLCipher on Windows Phone 8 or Windows Runtime, please checkout our Commercial Edition page to order now or request a trial. If you have any questions reach out to us and we'd glad to help!

Since a lot of our customers are buying new devices this time of year and inquiring about discounts for STRIP (as well as being kind enough to tell their friends about our password manager), we figured it's time to do a sale. Starting this evening until New Year's Day 2014, all versions of STRIP are on sale at 40% discount. That's Windows, OS X, Android, iPhone and iPad. That's a big discount!

Android and iOS

Just visit the store links, you'll see STRIP for Android, iPhone and iPad are all available now for only $2.99:

• STRIP for Android
• STRIP for iPad
• STRIP for iPhone

Windows and OS X

STRIP for Windows and STRIP for OS X can be purchased at 40% off ($6! A bowl of delicious Pho!) using the coupon code STRIPHOLIDAY2013. Visit the links below to purchase either app with the discount applied:

Sorry, this discount is no longer available.

STRIP for OS X is also available in the Mac App Store at 40% off.

Pass It On!

Have a colleague, friend or family member using the same password for everything? Someone who wants a rock-solid password manager that's tried and true? Please forward this discount to whomever you like, it's good until New Year's Day.

This release contains a fix for the PRAGMA cipher_migrate feature we added with the 3.0.0 release. A migration issue existed when a passphrase that was longer than 64 characters, or a raw hex key was provided which caused a failure during migration. In addition to the bug fix, we've added a new PRAGMA called cipher_add_random that allows one to add externally sourced entropy to the entropy pool of your configured crypto provider. Currently there is support for this via the OpenSSL and libtomcrypt providers. The format must be provided as blob literal containing a hex sequence. An example would look like this:

sqlite> PRAGMA key = 'test';
sqlite> PRAGMA cipher_add_random = "x'deadbaad'";

Please take a look at the 3.0.1 release and let us know if you have any questions or feedback.

This morning we've released STRIP 2.1.0 for all versions of STRIP in the various App Stores and made it available via auto-update in the desktop apps. This version of STRIP includes a major security upgrade and is not backwards compatible or sync compatible with earlier versions of STRIP. Thus, you should be prepared to upgrade all copies, and please back up your data before proceeding.

Important Upgrade Notes

Instructions for updating each STRIP are available on our FAQ.

• Please backup your mobile devices and desktop databases before upgrading, either via WiFi, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
• When you log in to STRIP 2.1.0 for the first time the database format will be updated. Due to database file and feature improvements, STRIP 2.1.0 will not sync with earlier versions of STRIP. Therefore, you should plan to update all of your devices and applications to STRIP 2.1.0 at around the same time. More information is available on our upgrade FAQ.

What's New

STRIP 2.1.0 features our updated SQLCipher encryption engine, and increases the number of PBKDF2 iterations used to derive your database key from 4,000 to 64,000, providing substantial security gains against increasingly sophisticated brute-force attacks. 

STRIP for Android

• Increases PBKDF2 iterations from 4,000 to 64,000
• Upgrades SQLCipher to version 3.0.0
• On the fly searching - search as you type
• Sync with other copies of STRIP requires minimum version of 2.1.0

STRIP for Windows

• Increases PBKDF2 iterations from 4,000 to 64,000
• Upgrades SQLCipher to version 3.0.0
• Sync with other copies of STRIP requires minimum version of 2.1.0
• Fixes ObjectDisposedException during data import

STRIP for OS X

• Increases PBKDF2 iterations from 4,000 to 64,000
• Upgrades SQLCipher to version 3.0.0
• Sync with other copies of STRIP requires minimum version of 2.1.0
• Fixes erroneous caching of field value heights on record view
• Fixes truncation of long notes in view
• Adds a Choose button to password generator view, corrects value copy into editor
• Fixes masking of newly created fields after editing is completed
• Auto-lock timer now stores setting in the encrypted database to prevent tampering
• Adds preference to lock STRIP on start of screensaver and screen lock

STRIP for iOS

• Increases PBKDF2 iterations from 4,000 to 64,000
• Upgrades SQLCipher to version 3.0.0
• Sync with other copies of STRIP requires minimum version of 2.1.0
• Uses Apple's CommonCrypto for hardware-accelerated cryptography
• Fixes crash adding date fields on iPad version
• Prompts for current password before allowing password reset
• Fixes appearance of "Export Data..." button on Lite version
• Changes minimum supported OS to iOS 5.0 for iPhone versions (still 6.1 on iPad)

We're excited to announce that SQLCipher 3 is now available. This release includes several substantial improvements:

• New default key derivation iteration count of 64,000, a 16x PBKDF2 work factor increase over the previous version
• New PRAGMA cipher_migrate, a simple utility command to upgrade an existing 1.x or 2x. database in place
• New sqlite3_key_v2 and sqlite3_rekey_v2 functions to allow keying and rekeying of named databases
• New ATTACH behavior, requiring an explicit key to be passed for encrypted databases
• Extended Raw Key/Salt feature, making it possible to set both the encryption key and database salt via a raw key specification
• Based on SQLite 3.8.0.2, a recent stable release of SQLite

Detailed notes about the differences are available in the original SQLCipher 3 beta announcement post.

It's important to note that these key derivation changes enable a much higher level of security than previous versions though, by default, SQLCipher 3 will not open older database. To enable backwards-compatibility, it is possible to adjust settings at runtime or migrate older databases:

1. To open an older database using SQLCipher 3, set the KDF iterations back to the old value of 4000 using PRAGMA kdf_iter = 4000
2. To attach and export data to a new database, use the sqlcipher_export() convenience function
3. To migrate and upgrade an existing database in place, use the new PRAGMA cipher_migrate feature

Finally, as a result of the increased key derivation count, users may notice that opening and keying a database takes longer in SQLCipher 3 than with previous release. Noticeable performance issues can almost always be avoided by ensuring that applications do not frequently open and close connections. That said, while we strongly recommend using the new default KDF settings, it is possible to set the default back to 4,000 iterations before any databases are open by calling the global PRAGMA cipher_default_kdf_iter = 4000; before invoking the SQLCipher library.

The latest source code can be found in the official project repository, and SQLCipher Commercial Edition libraries are already available in the SQLCipher Store. Commercial edition customers with CipherCare may contact us with their original order number for details on how to download an update.

Please take a look, try out the new library changes, and let us know if you have any feedback. Thanks!