Prefixing the IV is commonplace as you need the IV at the start when performing decryption. As the IV is usually one block in size, you do not have to store the size of the IV if you know the block cipher used. Note that the IV, just like the
Is initialization vector required?
The IV is typically required to be random or pseudorandom, but sometimes an IV only needs to be unpredictable or unique. ...
Do I need the IV to decrypt AES?
Hence, you must always use an IV of 128 bits (16 bytes) with AES. AES provides 128 bit, 192 bit and 256 bit of secret key size for encryption. ... And the final decrypted output will be Base64 string. If the intended output is a plain-text then, it can be decoded to plain-text in-place.