How to set read permission on the private key file of X.509 certificate from .NET

Question

Here is the code to add a pfx to the Cert store.

X509Store store = new X509Store( StoreName.My, StoreLocation.LocalMachine );
store.Open( OpenFlags.ReadWrite         


        

Answer 1

In case this helps anyone else out, I wrote Jim Flood's answer in Powershell

function Set-PrivateKeyPermissions {
param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$thumbprint,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$false)][string]$account = "NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE"
)
#Open Certificate store and locate certificate based on provided thumbprint
$store = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Store("My","LocalMachine")
$store.Open("ReadWrite")
$cert = $store.Certificates | where {$_.Thumbprint -eq $thumbprint}

#Create new CSP object based on existing certificate provider and key name
$csp = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.CspParameters($cert.PrivateKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.ProviderType, $cert.PrivateKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.ProviderName, $cert.PrivateKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyContainerName)

# Set flags and key security based on existing cert
$csp.Flags = "UseExistingKey","UseMachineKeyStore"
$csp.CryptoKeySecurity = $cert.PrivateKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.CryptoKeySecurity
$csp.KeyNumber = $cert.PrivateKey.CspKeyContainerInfo.KeyNumber

# Create new access rule - could use parameters for permissions, but I only needed GenericRead
$access = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.CryptoKeyAccessRule($account,"GenericRead","Allow")
# Add access rule to CSP object
$csp.CryptoKeySecurity.AddAccessRule($access)

#Create new CryptoServiceProvider object which updates Key with CSP information created/modified above
$rsa2 = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.RSACryptoServiceProvider($csp)

#Close certificate store
$store.Close()

}

Note that the account parameter can be in the form of "DOMAIN\USER" as well (not just built in names) - I tested this in my environment and it automatically converted it to the appropriate SID