PowerShell v1 Script Prompting for Password - windows

Question

I am trying to add remote server authentication to a PS1 batch file script.
So I can do this:
Copy-Item $src $destination -Credential $Creds
I created a password file that for now is in the same directory as the script. It simply contains the password string.
The line that causes the prompt:
Read-Host -AsSecureString | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Out-File password.txt
When I remove the Read-Host command, the prompt goes away and the script executes as expected.
Question
What's the correct way to do remote server authentication?
Here is the new code in context of the script:
[...]
if(-not(Test-Path $destination)){mkdir $destination | out-null}
Read-Host -AsSecureString | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Out-File password.txt
$PW = Get-Content password.txt | ConvertTo-Securestring
$Creds = New-Object -Typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -Argumentlist "SERVER02\Administrator",$PW
ForEach ($sourcefile In $(Get-ChildItem $source | Where-Object { $_.Name -match "Daily_Reviews\[\d{1,12}-\d{1,12}\].journal" }))
{
[...]
Copy-Item $src $destination -Credential $Creds
[...]
}

Answer 1

If you aren't worried about portability of the password file between machines, you can use this fairly secure approach:
# Capture once and store to file - DON'T PUT THIS PART IN YOUR SCRIPT
$passwd = Read-Host "Enter password" -AsSecureString
$encpwd = ConvertFrom-SecureString $passwd
$encpwd
$encpwd > $path\password.bin
# Later pull this in and restore to a secure string
$encpwd = Get-Content $path\password.bin
$passwd = ConvertTo-SecureString $encpwd
$cred = new-object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential 'john',$passwd
$cred
# NOTE: The "secret" required to rehyrdate correctly is stored in DPAPI - consequence:
# You can only rehydrate on the same machine that did the ConvertFrom-SecureString
If you need to debug this to see if $passwd is correct you can execute this while debugging:
$bstr = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($passwd)
$str = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringBSTR($bstr)
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::ZeroFreeBSTR($bstr)
$str