Administration
Overview
The goal of deploying CipherTrust Database Protection (CDP) is to retrofit existing databases so that security can be provided by encrypting and decrypting the data flowing into and out of databases. Deployment starts with encrypting existing databases - a process called data migration.
Data migration is the process of encrypting existing column(s). It also involves altering existing tables so that they can store the resulting ciphertext, and creating views and triggers so that existing applications can seamlessly and automatically encrypt new data and request decrypted data when needed.
CDP ensures various levels of security to protect your data from unauthorized users. Once the data is migrated, users and applications must have permission to send a request from the database to the Key Manager and they must have permission to access the encryption key. If either of these conditions is not met, then the sensitive data is not accessed.
How it Works
Consider an online retailer that stores sensitive customer data in plaintext in its database. The retailer’s applications write customer information, such as credit card numbers, directly to a database and read the plaintext values when needed. The data is stored in plaintext on the database for anyone to access.
To secure the data, the retailer installs CDP and migrates the data. Now, when an authorized application wants to write a credit card number to an encrypted column, CDP automatically sends the credit card number to the CipherTrust Manager for encryption. The CipherTrust Manager encrypts the value and returns the resulting ciphertext. The database writes the ciphertext to the column.
Supported Platforms
CDP for MSSQL supports all the versions of Windows operating systems that are supported by the database.
Supported Database Versions
CDP for MS SQL Server is supported on a number of databases and in a number of Windows environments. CDP supports the following SQL Server versions:
SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2016
SQL Server 2017
SQL Server 2019
SQL Server 2022
Compatibility with CipherTrust Manager
When using CDP 8.12.2 or higher with CipherTrust Manager 2.15 or lower, if a user mapping is added or updated, you must execute the pdbctl utility command migrateusermap. This makes the added/updated user mapping compatible with the CipherTrust Manager. Refer to Migrate user mappings for details.
