We are using Sybase SQL Anywhere 11. We need to encrypt some of our tables in our database. I followed the instruction and did it. We selected the "strong" option with encryptionKey and AES256_FIPS algorithm. But there are something I am not clear about them.
It will require encryptonKey when we create the database, remove the database and start the database server but it will NOT require encryptionKey when we stop the database server and connect to the server to create tables and add data. Why there is NO encryptionKey asked when we connect to it or try to stop the server? I am doing something wrong?
don't know how to test the encryption? I still can see all plain text in the encrypted tables when I use Sybase Central tool. If somebody knows the database user name and password, he/she can connect to the database and read the content without the encryptionKey. is this right?
I can't speak specifically to Sybase's system, but database encryption in general is designed to encrypt at the file system level to prevent backdoor access to the database's data (i.e. reading the binary file and parsing it yourself rather than going through the RDBMS), not to prevent access or obfuscate data through the standard database interface (it's expected that you'll use your RDBMS's security mechanisms to do this).
Most likely the SQL Anywhere tool captures the encryption key when you first enter it (i.e. at server startup) and then stores it in memory to decrypt for other operations. As #Adam Robinson said, the data needs to be encrypted in the filesystem or there's a back door by taking the "analog solution" and just parsing the raw file, which is a nice segue to your second question...
If you want to test the encryption, try locating and opening the file outside of the Sybase tools and see if you can spot any identifiable data. I would start with a simple text search for a string (create a cell with a unique string you can search for) and make sure its not there in the encrypted file. To verify, you could also parse a non-encrypted version of the database and make sure that you can find the string there.
Related
We use SQL Server, soon to be upgraded to the latest version of SQL Server, which I believe is SQL Server 2017. I'd like to be able to move some of our databases to the cloud, at least for development. Our company has instituted a lot of security protocols, and some (important) people in the company are uncomfortable with PII information or corporate information being on the cloud. Not that I blame them. I've read that SQL Server databases can be encrypted, and have read some of the documentation. This may be the solution to me being able to put some of our data in the cloud.
I can't get my head around how one could write a query against an encrypted database, without that database being at least temporarily decrypted. Would the fields referenced in queries or views be converted to encrypted values for the query to run? Or, is there some other way this is handled. I saw some stats on the overhead of TDS, and while it's not pretty, it may be doable. Could anyone explain in not quite layman's terms how this encryption is handled?
When you are doing a search against encrypted data, you would have to encrypt your search query in with the same algorithm the data was encrypted against. This eliminates the possibility for LIKE searches and for you to be able to show the data back in plain text however.
I can't get my head around how one could write a query against an encrypted database
There is difference if you encrypt the database or data.
Often the database itself can encrypt the database (such as MSSQL), or the hosting infrastructure can encrypt the data storage. In that case - the data themselves are stored encrypted, but the encryption is transparent to the authenticated clients (authenticated client will query the data as before, nothing changes). The key is managed by the infrastructure or database.
Another option is storing the data already encrypted by the client, e.g. encrypting only PII by the client app.
Storing all data already encrypted would make either data not searchable or you will need to use deterministic (semantically non-secure) encryption. This is what previous answer suggested. For this there's even a nice tool CryptDB which act as an encryption proxxy over database queries.
I got a question about encryption in SQL: encrypting data in the application's code (C#) and storing the encrypted data in the database has much less overhead compare to using the build-in SQL encryption options.
I like that:
You don't have to worry about making sure you'll be able to decrypt the data if you restore the database on a different server or when using SQL replication. I know that you can generate a special key that will allow you to do that but again, too much overhead.
It creates a total separation between the encryption method and the encrypted data.
Validating user password is done via the application's code by comparing user input with the hashed password. I don't think anyone need to run a query to check how many users have a specific password so we are good there.
On the other hand, if the encrypted data is a credit-card #, running a query to know when a specific card was used is not an unusual task.
To solve this problem, I'm thinking to use a SQL-CLR function to validate encrypted data. It will be used only for validation and not for encryption.
I wonder how safe is this going to be, especially if I would want to create some stored procedures that will relay on this user function to be able to query for data.
Thanks!
You are just asking for PCI problems I think. Why do you need to know when a specific card was used? For purposes of analytics/reporting or investigations/disputes/etc.
Your merchant processor (I am assuming you are a merchant based on the post) likely has ways to tokenize the actual card number at the point of sale. That token will still allow you to do analytics/reporting.
Storing encrypted data in the database, which was encrypted in the application layer, and then providing a way to decrypt in the database would likely ruin all the benefits of encryption.
Could you encrypt the card number in your C# app and then query that database using the already encrypted value?
Can you help with “validate encrypted data”?
I have a program written in Delphi 7, which uses a MS Access 2000 database as the backend.
I have password protected my MS ACCESS 2000 Database file (*.mdb) with a 16 character password consisting of a misture of Numeral, control, UpperCase, and LowerCase characters.
However, it looks like there are a number of programs on the market that claim that the password can be retrieved. What is the purpose of this database password if that is the case? Is there anyway to make it so it is not retrievable? Tighten the encryption so to speak?
thanks
MS Access 2010 uses better encryption and has some other features. SQL Server Compact edition gives you a lot more security but is still appropriate for a desktop app.
Otherwise, go with a server database: mysql, sql server, oracle. Most have free versions.
Is there anyway to make it so it is
not retrievable? Tighten the
encryption so to speak?
It depends; you can either change your database and look for a more secure one (e.g. MS SQL Server Compact Edition), or if you want to stay on MS Access and security of the data is important to you, go for encrypting important fields using a good encryption algorithm (e.g. AES).
If you are going to encrypt your fields, you can do it transparently in Delphi; each DB field in Delphi is derived from TField class, and has two events called OnGetText and OnSetText. OnGetText is fired every time you try to read the field's data, and OnSetText is fired every time you try to write to the field. You can encrypt a field data whenever OnSetText is fired, that way, the encrypted data will be saved in the database. On the other hand, you can decrypt a field data whenever OnGetText is fired, that way, user will always see and work with the decrypted data. The whole process would be transparent to the users.
Of course you should take note that encrypting/ decrypting fields every time they are being read or write has performance drawback depending on number of fields to be encrypted, their size, frequency of reading or writing them, and the encryption algorithm which is used. It's better you just encrypt the important fields.
Another option could be to encrypt the whole MS Access database file, and decrypt it whenever your application is connecting to it, but that way, the file is secure as long as your application is not running; once your application is running and the file is decrypted; the file is exposed to others.
What is the purpose of this database password if that is the case?
It makes people who think Access is a real database feel good about it.
Is there anyway to make it so it is not retrievable?
Stop using Access.
Tighten the encryption so to speak?
Not in Access. However, if you stop using Access and use a real database, you'll find that you can also have real security.
If security is a requirement then you should not be using a Jet database or any other file-sharing database architecture. It's as simple as that.
What is the purpose of this database
password if that is the case?
The purpose is to get people to upgrade to MS SQL Server and buy licenses for that as well. There are things MS will never fix.
On the other hand they have a free version of MS SQL Server which is not so crippled so you don't have to start paying through your nose unless your system will actually grow to need a full MS SQL Server.
However, if you develop systems like that (with no plan and not understanding limitations of the technologies you choose), you are most likely to lock yourself into proprietary features, for better or worse.
EDIT:
Here is quote directly from MS
Note Although the model and
techniques discussed in this article
enhance security, the most secure way
to help protect your Access data is to
store your tables on a server, such as
a computer running Windows SharePoint
Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2010.
Use crypt aes instead of standard mechanism.
I posted this question on Experts-Exchange as well. This is the kind of answer i was looking for (not critisism). Although this person eventually tells me to switch datbabases, he clearly explains why, without critisism:
DatabaseMX:
As you've discovered, there is essentially no security in an Access db password, prior to A2007. The are 1000's of tools (some free) that can immediately hack an Access password. A2007/10 is using an improved password paradigm ... it's security level is not clear yet.
"Is there anyway to make it so it is not retrievable"
No. It's only slightly better than nothing, depending on your specific environment where the mdb will be used.
"What is the purpose of this database password if that is the case? "
It was just a bad implementation. Period.
With A2003 and prior, the best you can do are a combination of the following:
1) db password
2) Add User Level Security
3) Create an MDE to protect code. But event an MDE can be hacked.
So, IF ... you really need better security, you will need to look at SQL Server or equivalent platform.
mx
I have a database with data that i don't want anyone to copy around.
Now, how can i prevent other users to have access in the local machine, but whenever i want to work with, i am allowed.
And another issue I'm thinking, how can i lock the DB so if someone copy the .mdb file and try to attach it on another machine he/she couldn't see a thing?
There are many different kinds of encryption options available in SQL Server. If you don't want to have to re-write your application then the new feature in SQL Server 2008 called Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is for you. It means you can encrypt the data files to prevent unauthorized users getting at the data from a backup or by copying the data files.
This MSDN link should be enough to get you started.
You probably want to use database encryption to achieve this. Then the mdb file will be useless.
Some links
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2009/04/28/sql-server-introduction-to-sql-server-encryption-and-symmetric-key-encryption-tutorial-with-script/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc278098.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510663.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316898
I don't want customers to be able to make backups of my sql server database and access the tables data etc.
I know there are some products that will encrypt the data in the tables, and their product will decrypt it when displaying in my application.
What products do you guys know of? What options do I have?
(This is a business requirement, however silly it might seem to some hehe).
Update
This is for sql server 2008 express
The problem with encrypting data inside the database is that as long as the database lives on the client's machine (as you indicated, they're running SQL 2008 Express, so I'm betting it lives on the client's desktops or laptops) then they can get into the data. They can set up security on the instance so that they have SA privileges, and from there, they can get the data, period. There's no way around that.
What you have to do is encrypt the data before it hits the database: encrypt it in your application. Inside the app, encrypt the data that you want to store in each sensitive field. As another poster indicated, you don't want to encrypt ID fields because those are used for indexing.
There is the 3rd party xp_crypt. It's been around for years.
It's an extended stored proc (that is, DLL)
SQL Server 2008 supports database encryption natively. Check the documentation for Transparent Data Encryption (TDE).
You can encrypt stored procedures, which can protect your logic.
TDE is available only Enterprise edition.
I can't find if it supports native sql encryption - but you could find this out with a little searching. But if it did you could probably set the database master key with your application and keep all of the decryption/encryption code in your application.
If it doesn't support native encryption, you might want to creat/find your own encryption functions in your application language and lock away the keys in your code.
Transparent Data Encryption will encrypt the database on disk, but is unencrypted in memory, so appropriate security would also be necessary to ensure unauthorised users cannot access the table. As it's an Enterprise-only feature, you can safely move away from it.
SQL Server 2005 and above have built-in encryption features - have a look at Books Online, and especially Chapter 5 - Encryption of Adam Machanic's Expert SQL Server 2005 Development book (technically, Lara Rubbelke wrote chapter 5 though).
Note that you'll only want to encrypt some columns - those that you'll never try to look up, as encrypted columns are pretty much useless for indexing. Adam Machanic's book suggests ways to solve this problem.
Another solution for transparent SQL Server encryption is DbDefence
Free for databases less than 77 MBs.