Retrieving password with secureString

Question

I am creating a file that has password with secureString as below

[string][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]$secureStringPwd = "password123"
$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $secureStringPwd -AsPlainText -Force
$secureStringText = $secpasswd | ConvertFrom-SecureString 
Set-Content "C:\folder\user.txt" $secureStringText

Now I am trying to retrieve the password the following way

$Password = Get-Content "C:\folder\user.txt" | ConvertFrom-SecureString 

$creds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("user", $Password)
$creds.Password
$creds.UserName

But I am getting an error as below:

New-Object : Cannot find an overload for "PSCredential" and the argument count: "2".
At line:1 char:10
+ $creds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("user ...
+          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [New-Object], MethodException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ConstructorInvokedThrowException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.NewObjectCommand

Answer 1

You need to Convert the password from the text file back into a Secure String

$Password = Get-Content "C:\folder\user.txt" | ConvertTo-SecureString

Also you need to get the password into plain text by using the Network Credentials

$creds.GetNetworkCredential().Password

Here is a working example

[string][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]$secureStringPwd = "password123"
$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $secureStringPwd -AsPlainText -Force
$secureStringText = $secpasswd | ConvertFrom-SecureString 
Set-Content "C:\folder\user.txt" $secureStringText

$Password = Get-Content "C:\folder\user.txt" | ConvertTo-SecureString 

$creds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("user", $Password)
$creds.GetNetworkCredential().Password
$creds.UserName