

The -k argument on my openssl accepts a passphrase, not a file. You likely encrypted with the filename as the secret, not it’s contents. Perhaps you should use -kfile instead.
$ openssl aes-256-cbc -help
Usage: aes-256-cbc [options]
General options:
-help Display this summary
-list List ciphers
-ciphers Alias for -list
-e Encrypt
-d Decrypt
-p Print the iv/key
-P Print the iv/key and exit
-engine val Use engine, possibly a hardware device
Input options:
-in infile Input file
** -k val Passphrase**
-kfile infile Read passphrase from file


Not OP but this is how I learned it and how it’s presented in the help file.
$ help while while: while COMMANDS; do COMMANDS-2; done $ help if if: if COMMANDS; then COMMANDS; [ elif COMMANDS; then COMMANDS; ]... [ else COMMANDS; ] fi