Database encryption & masking

Database Encryption and Column-level Privacy Controls

Hackers love databases: information is the lifeblood of the digital economy and databases concentrate information. It is not a secret that data breaches are rapidly increasing with no shortage of unscrupulous actors being attracted by the allure of high potential payouts with low physical risk.

Naturally, database protection is now a high priority and for organizations that simply want to tick the ‘database encrypted’ box there are many options including database-native Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) from vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft.

For customers who want to get serious about protecting their data assets, Randtronics DPM offers a systemic approach to data privacy management that includes an all-encompassing form of TDE that both protects databases and all other locations (database servers, file stores, app servers, laptops) where sensitive data is stored, along with an easy upgrade path to also implement enterprise key management and data spoofing (encryption, tokenization, masking, pseudonymization and anonymization) to protect data-at-rest stored on-premise, in-cloud or within containers.

Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) as provided by database vendors (Native TDE) protects internal data but does not protect the environment supporting the database structure:

Echos and traces of database records and activities are created and stored on the database server and shared on other devices such as file server, cloud storage and laptops.
Native TDE protects the internal database contents; protecting anything outside of the database, is somebody else’s problem.
Sophisticated attackers can dumpster-dive database, web app and file servers for data copies stored in reports, test or analytics systems.
Privileged DBA accounts (if compromised) can extract or change data and cover their tracks by altering log files.
Privileged Sys Admin accounts (if compromised) can copy entire databases, along with their TDE encryption keys which are often stored as clear data on the same database server.

For organizations protecting highly sensitive information, this is equivalent to leaving sensitive reports in a non secure environment and forgetting to shred documents before disposal.