Crypto and PKI application capabilities

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The simplified application programming interface available for Windows Store apps enables the following cryptographic and public key infrastructure (PKI) capabilities:

Cryptography support

You can perform the following cryptographic tasks. For more information, see the Windows.Security.Cryptography.Core namespace.

  • Create symmetric keys
  • Perform symmetric encryption
  • Create asymmetric keys
  • Perform asymmetric encryption
  • Derive password based keys
  • Create message authentication codes (MACs)
  • Hash content
  • Digitally sign content

The Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 8 also provides a simplified interface for password-based data protection. You can use this to perform the following tasks. For more information, see the Windows.Security.Cryptography.DataProtection namespace.

  • Asynchronous protection of static data
  • Asynchronous protection of a data stream

Encoding support

A Windows Store app can encode cryptographic data for transmission across a network and decode data received from a network source. For more information, see the static methods available in the Windows.Security.Cryptography namespace.

PKI support

A Windows Store app can perform the following PKI tasks. For more information, see the Windows.Security.Cryptography.Certificates namespace.

  • Create a certificate
  • Create a self-signed certificate
  • Install a certificate response
  • Import a certificate in PFX format
  • Use smart card certificates and keys (sharedUserCertificates capabilities set)
  • Use certificates from the user MY store (sharedUserCertificates capabilities set)

Additionally, you can use the manifest to perform the following actions:

  • Specify per application trusted root certificates
  • Specify per application peer trusted certificates
  • Explicitly disable inheritance from system trust
  • Specify the certificate selection criteria
    • Hardware certificates only
    • Certificates that chain through a specified set of issuers
    • Automatically select a certificate from the application store

Introduction to Windows Store app security

Roadmap for Windows Store apps using C# or Visual Basic