Create random 128 bit AES Encryption key in iOS

Question

I want to create random AES Encryption key (128 bit) in ios. I have searched in SO but I cannot find a good answer. Please give me some advice. thanks in advance.

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Answer 1

Woah, that's complicated code for a simple task!

- (NSData *)random128BitAESKey {
    unsigned char buf[16];
    arc4random_buf(buf, sizeof(buf));
    return [NSData dataWithBytes:buf length:sizeof(buf)];
}

You probably heard somewhere that you should use salt and hash your passwords. It looks like you took this advice a little too far: there are no passwords here and yet your code still salts and hashes the data! This is completely useless when the input comes from a secure random number generator like arc4random.

Of course it won't convert to an NSString because random data is unlikely to be valid UTF-8 string.