The power of the Base64 algorithm
Base64 encoding serves the purpose of representing binary data in the form of an ASCII string. Widely utilized in malware development, the word Base64 originates from the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) standard. Originally intended for encoding email attachments, it has found widespread application in HTTP and XML. Base64 encoding converts binary data into a limited character set of 64 characters. Various schemes or alphabets exist for different types of Base64 encoding, all of which use 64 primary characters and an extra character for padding, generally represented as =.
Base64 in practice
The process for converting raw data into Base64 is standardized. It works with 24-bit (3-byte) chunks of data. The first character is placed in the most significant position, the second in the middle 8 bits, and the third in the least significant position. These bits are then read in groups of six, starting with the most significant bit. The...
