And with time DES will only become less secure. A brute force DES-cracking machine can find a key in approximately 3.5 hours. DES is a symmetric algorithm meaning that the same algorithm and a key are used for both encryption and decryption. Data Encryption Standard is a block cipher that encrypts data in 64-bit blocks. SQL Server backup encryption feature provides data encryption with the AES 128, AES 192, AES 256, and Triple DES (3DES) algorithms.ĭata Encryption Standard, also known as the Data Encryption Algorithm (DEA), is developed in the early seventies and published in 1977. The next level in the hierarchy is a certificate that can contain a private key that is protected by the Database Master Key, or an asymmetric key (note that if using an asymmetric key for encrypting the backup data only asymmetric keys that reside in the Extensible Key Management (EKM) provider are supported). Database Master Key is encrypted using the Service Master Key. Database Master Key is unique to each system master database for each SQL Server instance. The next layer is a Database Master Key (DMK) of the master database.
Service Master Key is encrypted based on the credentials for the SQL Server service account and the Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI) key. SMK is unique for every SQL Server instance. Service Master Key is generated automatically during the SQL Server installation and stored in the system master database. The first hierarchy layer is the Service Master Key (SMK). SQL Server has a hierarchical encryption infrastructure where each layer in the hierarchy encrypts the layer below. How does SQL Server backup encryption work? As in case of the Backup Encryption feature encryption/decryption is performed only when backing up and restoring a database therefore there are no performance issues. SQL Server backup encryption is introduced in SQL Server 2014 and it supports encrypting database backups directly from the database engine. As Transparent Data Encryption encrypts data “on the fly” it showed performance issues resulting in significantly increased CPU usage during the e.g. TDE protects the database against unauthorized access to the hard disks or backups on which a database is stored. SQL Server 2008 introduced Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) that enables encrypting of an entire database.
SQL Server offers two ways of encrypting data:
Encryption is the process of obfuscating data with the use of a key and/or password making the data unintelligible to anyone without a corresponding decryption key or a password. A database is one of the most important parts of every information system and therefore is an often target of hackers.