VB: Password encryption

Imports System.Security.Cryptography
Imports System.Text
Imports System.IO


Public Class MyEncryptDecrypt

' Encrypt the text
Public Shared Function EncryptText(ByVal strText As String) As String
Return Encrypt(strText, "&%#@?,:*")
End Function
'Decrypt the text
Public Shared Function DecryptText(ByVal strText As String) As String
Return Decrypt(strText, "&%#@?,:*")
End Function
'The function used to encrypt the text
Private Shared Function Encrypt(ByVal strText As String, ByVal
strEncrKey As String) As String
Dim byKey() As Byte = {}
Dim IV() As Byte = {&H12, &H34, &H56, &H78, &H90, &HAB, &HCD, &HEF}
Try
byKey = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(Left(strEncrKey , 8))
Dim des As New DESCryptoServiceProvider
Dim inputByteArray() As Byte = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(strText)
Dim ms As New MemoryStream
Dim cs As New CryptoStream(ms, des.CreateEncryptor(byKey, IV),
CryptoStreamMode.Write)
cs.Write(inputByteArray, 0, inputByteArray.Length)
cs.FlushFinalBlock()
Return Convert.ToBase64String(ms.ToArray())
Catch ex As Exception
Return ex.Message
End Try
End Function
'The function used