I'm not exactly positive how to word this for the sake of the title so please forgive me. Also I can't seem to figure out how to even google this question, so I'm hoping that I can get a lead in the right direction. Part of my software(VB.NET App) requires the ability to access/read/write a shared network folder. I have an option for the user to specify any credentials that might be needed to access said folder. I want to store these credentials given in the MS SQL Database as part of the config(I have a table which contains configuration). My concern is that the password for the user account will be unencrpyted. Yet, if I encrypt the password the VB.NET App And/Or database will be unable to use the credentials for file i/o operations unless the Password is unencrypted before use. I'm fishing for suggestions on how to better handle this situation.