never use secret key as an initialization vector

gluon/utils.py

@@ -49,7 +49,13 @@ except ImportError:
 
 logger = logging.getLogger("web2py")
 
-AES_new = lambda key: AES.new(key, AES.MODE_CBC, IV=key[:16])
+def AES_new(key, IV=None):
+    """ Returns an AES cipher object and random IV if None specified """
+    if IV is None:
+        IV = fast_urandom16()
+
+    return AES.new(key, AES.MODE_CBC, IV), IV
+
 
 def compare(a, b):
     """ compares two strings and not vulnerable to timing attacks """
@@ -131,8 +137,8 @@ def secure_dumps(data, encryption_key, hash_key=None, compression_level=None):
     if compression_level:
         dump = zlib.compress(dump, compression_level)
     key = pad(encryption_key[:32])
-    cipher = AES_new(key)
-    encrypted_data = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(cipher.encrypt(pad(dump)))
+    cipher, IV = AES_new(key)
+    encrypted_data = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(IV + cipher.encrypt(pad(dump)))
     signature = hmac.new(hash_key, encrypted_data).hexdigest()
     return signature + ':' + encrypted_data
 
@@ -147,9 +153,11 @@ def secure_loads(data, encryption_key, hash_key=None, compression_level=None):
     if not compare(signature, actual_signature):
         return None
     key = pad(encryption_key[:32])
-    cipher = AES_new(key)
+    encrypted_data = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(encrypted_data)
+    IV, encrypted_data = encrypted_data[:16], encrypted_data[16:]
+    cipher, _ = AES_new(key, IV=IV)
     try:
-        data = cipher.decrypt(base64.urlsafe_b64decode(encrypted_data))
+        data = cipher.decrypt(encrypted_data)
         data = data.rstrip(' ')
         if compression_level:
             data = zlib.decompress(data)