I understand this might be a repeat of this question: [How to encrypt data in sql server and decrypt it in .net apps](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3202011/how-to-encrypt-data-in-sql-server-and-decrypt-it-in-net-apps)
 - But this was asked almost a year ago and I'm hoping there might have been advancements or something.

Anyways, we have an application that FTPs files from one location to another and obviously the FTP profile needs a password. We have a database with all the details of the profiles, but we need the passwords to be encrypted. We've thought of decrypting them in SQL then sending them to the app, but that would mean sending it over the network, which we don't want.

We want to encrypt the stored passwords, pass the details to the application, then decrypt them within the application.

Is this possible?

From my googling, it doesn't seem it is, but I'm hoping someone has a trick or something.

Thanks in advance!

**Note:** I'm using .Net 4 and SQL Server 2008 R2.