That's a pretty convenient way to implement storing/retrieved encoded strings in PowerShell. I likely have some uses for that. :)
Regarding comparing this to Windows Credential Manager or the SQL DB approach:
1) This assumes that only the secure password string is in the file; no username, no url, no protocol, no other configuration details (like starting directory). One of the main benefits of the SQL DB/CredMan approach is that many different credentials and some limited additional information could be stored along with it.
Now, this isn't much of a problem because you can just make your encrypted string in a file approach just a bit more complicated so that it can store many user names, passwords, and protocol/url destinations; and before too long you've just created a reimplementation for Windows Credential Manager. :)
Check out this link: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/PowerShell-Credentials-d44c3cde
2) I might be wrong about Windows Credential Manager, but at the moment I haven't seen a way to create a shared credential repository. This solution is file based, so it could be centralized on a directory share, and that's definitely better than a "per user" silo. We're already using a SQL DB which is wrapped by a .Net library.
What I'd really prefer is a "both" kind of solution, where as part of CredMan I can select which "Vault" to open (or supply a file name to be the vault I want to work with).
Regarding comparing this to Windows Credential Manager or the SQL DB approach:
1) This assumes that only the secure password string is in the file; no username, no url, no protocol, no other configuration details (like starting directory). One of the main benefits of the SQL DB/CredMan approach is that many different credentials and some limited additional information could be stored along with it.
Now, this isn't much of a problem because you can just make your encrypted string in a file approach just a bit more complicated so that it can store many user names, passwords, and protocol/url destinations; and before too long you've just created a reimplementation for Windows Credential Manager. :)
Check out this link: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/PowerShell-Credentials-d44c3cde
2) I might be wrong about Windows Credential Manager, but at the moment I haven't seen a way to create a shared credential repository. This solution is file based, so it could be centralized on a directory share, and that's definitely better than a "per user" silo. We're already using a SQL DB which is wrapped by a .Net library.
What I'd really prefer is a "both" kind of solution, where as part of CredMan I can select which "Vault" to open (or supply a file name to be the vault I want to work with).