Postgresql database encryption

Hi, Vikas,

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 10:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Guys,

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database wide
encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

This is a requirement in our production implementation.

Yes, it is possible.
We have a PostgreSQL DB encrypted in our project.

I'm not sure what was used though - OS or DB implementation. We use RHEL6.

Thank you.

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database wide
encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

As far as I know there's no open source solution for instance or
database wide encryption.

If commercial solutions are ok for you, there are some. Please ask me
in a private email (I don't want to spam the list).

Best regards,
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
English: http://www.sraoss.co.jp/index_en.php
Japanese:http://www.sraoss.co.jp

What requirements do you have? Would enabling full disk encryption suite your needs?

On April 20, 2018 11:14:30 AM CDT, Tatsuo Ishii <ishii@sraoss.co.jp> wrote:

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database

wide

encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

As far as I know there's no open source solution for instance or
database wide encryption.

If commercial solutions are ok for you, there are some. Please ask me
in a private email (I don't want to spam the list).

Best regards,
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
English: http://www.sraoss.co.jp/index_en.php
Japanese:http://www.sraoss.co.jp

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Guys,

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database wide
encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

For anyone to offer a proper solution, you need to say what purpose your
encryption will serve. Does the data need to be encrypted at rest? Does it
need to be encrypted in memory? Does it need to be encrypted at the
database level or at the application level? Do you need to be able to query
the data? There are all sorts of scenarios and use cases, and you need to
be more specific.

For me, using whole-disk encryption solved my need, which was to ensure
that the data on disk cannot be read once removed from the server. For
certain fields in one table, I use application level encryption so only the
application itself can see the original data. Anyone else querying that
table sees the encrypted blob, and it was not searchable.

On 04/20/2018 03:55 PM, Vick Khera wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com
<mailto:shavikas@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hello Guys,

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database
wide encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use
in production?.

For anyone to offer a proper solution, you need to say what purpose your
encryption will serve. Does the data need to be encrypted at rest? Does it
need to be encrypted in memory? Does it need to be encrypted at the
database level or at the application level? Do you need to be able to
query the data? There are all sorts of scenarios and use cases, and you
need to be more specific.

For me, using whole-disk encryption solved my need, which was to ensure
that the data on disk cannot be read once removed from the server.

Someone really needs to explain that to me. My company-issued laptop has
WDE, and that's great for when the machine is shut down and I'm carrying it
from place to place, but when it's running, all the data is transparently
decrypted for every process that wants to read the data, including malware,
industrial spies,

Thus, unless you move your DB server on a regular basis, I can't see the
usefulness of WDE on a static machine.

For certain fields in one table, I use application level encryption so
only the application itself can see the original data. Anyone else
querying that table sees the encrypted blob, and it was not searchable.

--
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.

Greetings,

* Ron (ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com) wrote:

On 04/20/2018 03:55 PM, Vick Khera wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com
For anyone to offer a proper solution, you need to say what purpose your
encryption will serve. Does the data need to be encrypted at rest? Does it
need to be encrypted in memory? Does it need to be encrypted at the
database level or at the application level? Do you need to be able to
query the data? There are all sorts of scenarios and use cases, and you
need to be more specific.

For me, using whole-disk encryption solved my need, which was to ensure
that the data on disk cannot be read once removed from the server.

Someone really needs to explain that to me. My company-issued laptop has
WDE, and that's great for when the machine is shut down and I'm carrying it
from place to place, but when it's running, all the data is transparently
decrypted for every process that wants to read the data, including malware,
industrial spies,

Thus, unless you move your DB server on a regular basis, I can't see the
usefulness of WDE on a static machine.

The typical concern (aka, attack vector) isn't around moving the DB
server on a regular basis or about someone breaking into your data
center and stealing your drives, it's making sure that disposal of
equipment doesn't result in valuable data being retained on the
drives when they leave the data center for replacement or disposal.

Thanks!

Stephen

On 04/20/2018 06:11 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:

Greetings,

* Ron (ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com) wrote:

On 04/20/2018 03:55 PM, Vick Khera wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com
For anyone to offer a proper solution, you need to say what purpose your
encryption will serve. Does the data need to be encrypted at rest? Does it
need to be encrypted in memory? Does it need to be encrypted at the
database level or at the application level? Do you need to be able to
query the data? There are all sorts of scenarios and use cases, and you
need to be more specific.

For me, using whole-disk encryption solved my need, which was to ensure
that the data on disk cannot be read once removed from the server.

Someone really needs to explain that to me. My company-issued laptop has
WDE, and that's great for when the machine is shut down and I'm carrying it
from place to place, but when it's running, all the data is transparently
decrypted for every process that wants to read the data, including malware,
industrial spies,

Thus, unless you move your DB server on a regular basis, I can't see the
usefulness of WDE on a static machine.

The typical concern (aka, attack vector) isn't around moving the DB
server on a regular basis or about someone breaking into your data
center and stealing your drives, it's making sure that disposal of
equipment doesn't result in valuable data being retained on the
drives when they leave the data center for replacement or disposal.

That makes some sense, but years of added CPU overhead to mitigate a problem
that could be solved by writing zeros to the disk as a step in the decomm
process seems more than a bit wasteful.

--
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.

On 04/20/2018 05:43 PM, Ron wrote:

On 04/20/2018 06:11 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:

Greetings,

* Ron (ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com) wrote:

On 04/20/2018 03:55 PM, Vick Khera wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com
For anyone to offer a proper solution, you need to say what purpose
your
encryption will serve. Does the data need to be encrypted at rest?
Does it
need to be encrypted in memory? Does it need to be encrypted at the
database level or at the application level? Do you need to be able to
query the data? There are all sorts of scenarios and use cases, and
you
need to be more specific.

For me, using whole-disk encryption solved my need, which was to
ensure
that the data on disk cannot be read once removed from the server.

Someone really needs to explain that to me. My company-issued laptop
has
WDE, and that's great for when the machine is shut down and I'm
carrying it
from place to place, but when it's running, all the data is
transparently
decrypted for every process that wants to read the data, including
malware,
industrial spies,

Thus, unless you move your DB server on a regular basis, I can't see
the
usefulness of WDE on a static machine.

The typical concern (aka, attack vector) isn't around moving the DB
server on a regular basis or about someone breaking into your data
center and stealing your drives, it's making sure that disposal of
equipment doesn't result in valuable data being retained on the
drives when they leave the data center for replacement or disposal.

That makes some sense, but years of added CPU overhead to mitigate a
problem that could be solved by writing zeros to the disk as a step in
the decomm process seems more than a bit wasteful.

Well you probably need to drive a nail through the drive but that's a
technical detail :)

Greetings,

* Ron (ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com) wrote:

On 04/20/2018 06:11 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:

* Ron (ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com) wrote:

On 04/20/2018 03:55 PM, Vick Khera wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com
For anyone to offer a proper solution, you need to say what purpose your
encryption will serve. Does the data need to be encrypted at rest? Does it
need to be encrypted in memory? Does it need to be encrypted at the
database level or at the application level? Do you need to be able to
query the data? There are all sorts of scenarios and use cases, and you
need to be more specific.

For me, using whole-disk encryption solved my need, which was to ensure
that the data on disk cannot be read once removed from the server.

Someone really needs to explain that to me. My company-issued laptop has
WDE, and that's great for when the machine is shut down and I'm carrying it
from place to place, but when it's running, all the data is transparently
decrypted for every process that wants to read the data, including malware,
industrial spies,

Thus, unless you move your DB server on a regular basis, I can't see the
usefulness of WDE on a static machine.

The typical concern (aka, attack vector) isn't around moving the DB
server on a regular basis or about someone breaking into your data
center and stealing your drives, it's making sure that disposal of
equipment doesn't result in valuable data being retained on the
drives when they leave the data center for replacement or disposal.

That makes some sense, but years of added CPU overhead to mitigate a problem
that could be solved by writing zeros to the disk as a step in the decomm
process seems more than a bit wasteful.

This presumes that the drive is still functional enough to be able to
overwrite it with zeros, and that overwriting it with zeros would be
sufficient. Neither are, necessairly, accurate.

Thanks!

Stephen

Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com> writes:

Hello Guys,

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database wide
encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

This is a requirement in our production implementation.

This sounds like a lazy management requirement specified for 'security'
purposes by people with little understanding of either technology or
security. I suspect it comes form a conversation that went along the
lines of ....

"There has been lots in the news about cyber threats"

"Yes, we need our system to be secure"

"I know, lets make one of the requirements that everything must be
encrypted, that will stop them"

"Great idea, I'll add it as requirement 14".

This is a very poor requirement because it is not adequately specified,
but more critically, because it is specifying a 'solution' rather than
articulating the requirement in a way which would allow those with the
necessary expertise to derive an appropriate solution - one which may or
may not involve encryption or hashing of data and which may or may not
be at the database level.

What you really need to do is go back to your stakeholders and ask them
a lot of questions to extract what the real requirement is. Try to find
out what risk they are trying to mitigate with encryption. Once this is
understood, then look at what the technology can do and work out the
design/implementation from there.

It is extremely unlikely you just want all the data in the database
encrypted. When you think about it, such an approach really doesn't make
sense. In basic terms, if the data is encrypted, the database engine
will need to be able to decrypt it in order to operate (consider how a
where clause needs to be able to interpret actions etc). If the db can
read the data, the keys must be in the database. If the keys are in the
database and your database is compromised, then your keys are
compromised. So provided you protect your database from compromise, you
achieve the same level of security as you do with full data encryption
EXCEPT for access to the underlying data files outside of the database
system. For this, you will tend to use some sort of file system
encryption, which is typically managed at the operating system
level. Again, for the operating system to be able to read the file
system, the OS must have access to the decryption keys, so if your OS is
compromised, then that level of protection is lost as well (well, that
is over simplified, but you get the idea). What this level of protection
does give you is data at rest protection - if someone is able to access
hour disks through some other means, they cannot read the data. This is
the same principal most people should be using with their
laptops. Protect the OS with a password and have the data on disk
encrypted. Provided nobody can login to your laptop, they cannot read
your data. Without this encryption, you can just take the disk out of
the laptop, mount it on another system and you have full access. With
disk encryption, you cannot do that. Same basic principal with the
server.

At the database level, a more typical approach is to use one way hashing
for some sensitive data (i.e. passwords) and possibly column level
encryption on a specific column (much rarer) or just well structured
security policies and user roles that restrict who has access to various
tables/columns. To implement this successfully, you need details
regarding the domain, sensitivity of various data elements and the
threats you need to protect against. If you cannot get this information
because your stakeholders don't really know what their risks are and
have not done a proper assessment and what you are really dealing with
is bureaucracy which just as a dumb "data must be encrypted" policy,
just use full disk encryption and state that all data is encrypted on
disk" and your done.

Tim

--
Tim Cross

Ron <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com> writes:

On 04/20/2018 03:55 PM, Vick Khera wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com
<mailto:shavikas@gmail.com>> wrote:

Someone really needs to explain that to me. My company-issued laptop has
WDE, and that's great for when the machine is shut down and I'm carrying it
from place to place, but when it's running, all the data is transparently
decrypted for every process that wants to read the data, including malware,
industrial spies,

It really depends on the architecture. In many server environments these
days, some sort of network storage is used. Having the 'disk' associated
with a specific server encrypted can provide some level of protection from another
machine which also has access to the underlying infrastructure from
being able to access that data.

The other level of protection is for when disks are disposed of. There
have been many cases where data has been retrieved off disks which have
been sent for disposal.

Finally, the basic physical protection. Someone cannot just access your
data centre, remove a disk from the SAN and then access the data.

Then of course there is the bureaucratic protection - "Yes boss, all our
data is encrypted on disk."

Tim
"
--
Tim Cross

Ron <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com> writes:

On 04/20/2018 06:11 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:

Greetings,

* Ron (ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com) wrote:

On 04/20/2018 03:55 PM, Vick Khera wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:24 AM, Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com
For anyone to offer a proper solution, you need to say what purpose your
encryption will serve. Does the data need to be encrypted at rest? Does it
need to be encrypted in memory? Does it need to be encrypted at the
database level or at the application level? Do you need to be able to
query the data? There are all sorts of scenarios and use cases, and you
need to be more specific.

For me, using whole-disk encryption solved my need, which was to ensure
that the data on disk cannot be read once removed from the server.

Someone really needs to explain that to me. My company-issued laptop has
WDE, and that's great for when the machine is shut down and I'm carrying it
from place to place, but when it's running, all the data is transparently
decrypted for every process that wants to read the data, including malware,
industrial spies,

Thus, unless you move your DB server on a regular basis, I can't see the
usefulness of WDE on a static machine.

The typical concern (aka, attack vector) isn't around moving the DB
server on a regular basis or about someone breaking into your data
center and stealing your drives, it's making sure that disposal of
equipment doesn't result in valuable data being retained on the
drives when they leave the data center for replacement or disposal.

That makes some sense, but years of added CPU overhead to mitigate a problem
that could be solved by writing zeros to the disk as a step in the decomm
process seems more than a bit wasteful.

Problem is that decomm process relies on someone actually following the
process. Too often, this part fails. The overhead with WDE these days is
minimal anyway. Good security is always about layers of protection and
should never just rely on a single control.

Tim
--
Tim Cross

Well, actually since 2003, this has been a standard requirement from the
Credit Card industry. And it does make sense in the field of "while at
rest" the data still cannot be accessed.

Requirement 1. No NPI data should be displayed without controls - e.g.
reports, PDF, etc.
Requirement 2. Same data, must be secured during transmission - fetching to
client screen etc.
Requirement 3. NPI data should not be logged nor stored on a physical
device in non-encrypted mode.

There are more steps to this, but, to chalk it off as another half-assed
required is typical. Hashing is a useful one-way technique, however,
trapping the hash made using a hash useless! When I worked for the credit
bureaus we ran encrypted drive arrays, DB/2 encrypted, SSL/TLS encryption
over P2P VPN connections, and masked output fields when the data would go
to reports or screens to PCs outside our control.

Anyone with Linux and use LUKS encryption on an LVM partition to achieve
security where the database may not, or logs or something may exist where
NPI might be see. Oh yeah, NPI (Non-Pubic Information, like your social,
you bank account, you paycheck information, etc. things that should not
exist outside of controls)...

PS. You cannot simply take a drive from one machine to another, when doing
proper RAID and LUKS encryption.

Ozz
15 years experience with federal data security requirements.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 7:55 PM Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> wrote:

On 04/20/2018 10:24 AM, Vikas Sharma wrote:

Hello Guys,

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database wide
encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

What about encrypted backups?

--
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.

PS. the following database servers do offer internal encryption on a
page/block oriented read/write (for encrypted data at rest security
requirements)

PremierSQL TDE
MariaDB 10.1.3+
*MySQL* 5.7.11+
Microsoft uses TDE
Oracle AdvSec uses TDE
DB2 v7.2 UDB
MangoDB uses AES-256
PostgreSQL does - but the key is public (dumb)
/messages/by-id/CA+CSw_tb3bk5i7if6inZFc3yyf+9HEVNTy51QFBoeUk7UE_V=w@mail.gmail.com

Just because you do not see the reason for it, does not make the reason a
bad idea.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 8:19 PM Ozz Nixon <ozznixon@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, Percona (a MySQL fork) 5.7.

On 04/20/2018 07:31 PM, Ozz Nixon wrote:

PS. the following database servers do offer internal encryption on a
page/block oriented read/write (for encrypted data at rest security
requirements)

PremierSQL TDE
MariaDB 10.1.3+
*MySQL* 5.7.11+
Microsoft uses TDE
Oracle AdvSec uses TDE
DB2 v7.2 UDB
MangoDB uses AES-256
PostgreSQL does - but the key is public (dumb)
/messages/by-id/CA+CSw_tb3bk5i7if6inZFc3yyf+9HEVNTy51QFBoeUk7UE_V=w@mail.gmail.com

Just because you do not see the reason for it, does not make the reason a
bad idea.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 8:19 PM Ozz Nixon <ozznixon@gmail.com
<mailto:ozznixon@gmail.com>> wrote:

Well, actually since 2003, this has been a standard requirement from
the Credit Card industry. And it does make sense in the field of
"while at rest" the data still cannot be accessed.

Requirement 1. No NPI data should be displayed without controls - e.g.
reports, PDF, etc.
Requirement 2. Same data, must be secured during transmission -
fetching to client screen etc.
Requirement 3. NPI data should not be logged nor stored on a physical
device in non-encrypted mode.

There are more steps to this, but, to chalk it off as another
half-assed required is typical. Hashing is a useful one-way technique,
however, trapping the hash made using a hash useless! When I worked
for the credit bureaus we ran encrypted drive arrays, DB/2 encrypted,
SSL/TLS encryption over P2P VPN connections, and masked output fields
when the data would go to reports or screens to PCs outside our control.

Anyone with Linux and use LUKS encryption on an LVM partition to
achieve security where the database may not, or logs or something may
exist where NPI might be see. Oh yeah, NPI (Non-Pubic Information,
like your social, you bank account, you paycheck information, etc.
things that should not exist outside of controls)...

PS. You cannot simply take a drive from one machine to another, when
doing proper RAID and LUKS encryption.

Ozz
15 years experience with federal data security requirements.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 7:55 PM Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com
<mailto:theophilusx@gmail.com>> wrote:

Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com <mailto:shavikas@gmail.com>> writes:

Hello Guys,

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or

database wide

encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

This is a requirement in our production implementation.

This sounds like a lazy management requirement specified for
'security'
purposes by people with little understanding of either technology or
security. I suspect it comes form a conversation that went along the
lines of ....

"There has been lots in the news about cyber threats"

"Yes, we need our system to be secure"

"I know, lets make one of the requirements that everything must be
encrypted, that will stop them"

"Great idea, I'll add it as requirement 14".

This is a very poor requirement because it is not adequately
specified,
but more critically, because it is specifying a 'solution' rather than
articulating the requirement in a way which would allow those with the
necessary expertise to derive an appropriate solution - one which
may or
may not involve encryption or hashing of data and which may or may not
be at the database level.

What you really need to do is go back to your stakeholders and ask
them
a lot of questions to extract what the real requirement is. Try to
find
out what risk they are trying to mitigate with encryption. Once
this is
understood, then look at what the technology can do and work out the
design/implementation from there.

It is extremely unlikely you just want all the data in the database
encrypted. When you think about it, such an approach really
doesn't make
sense. In basic terms, if the data is encrypted, the database engine
will need to be able to decrypt it in order to operate (consider how a
where clause needs to be able to interpret actions etc). If the db can
read the data, the keys must be in the database. If the keys are
in the
database and your database is compromised, then your keys are
compromised. So provided you protect your database from
compromise, you
achieve the same level of security as you do with full data encryption
EXCEPT for access to the underlying data files outside of the database
system. For this, you will tend to use some sort of file system
encryption, which is typically managed at the operating system
level. Again, for the operating system to be able to read the file
system, the OS must have access to the decryption keys, so if your
OS is
compromised, then that level of protection is lost as well (well, that
is over simplified, but you get the idea). What this level of
protection
does give you is data at rest protection - if someone is able to
access
hour disks through some other means, they cannot read the data.
This is
the same principal most people should be using with their
laptops. Protect the OS with a password and have the data on disk
encrypted. Provided nobody can login to your laptop, they cannot read
your data. Without this encryption, you can just take the disk out of
the laptop, mount it on another system and you have full access. With
disk encryption, you cannot do that. Same basic principal with the
server.

At the database level, a more typical approach is to use one way
hashing
for some sensitive data (i.e. passwords) and possibly column level
encryption on a specific column (much rarer) or just well structured
security policies and user roles that restrict who has access to
various
tables/columns. To implement this successfully, you need details
regarding the domain, sensitivity of various data elements and the
threats you need to protect against. If you cannot get this
information
because your stakeholders don't really know what their risks are and
have not done a proper assessment and what you are really dealing with
is bureaucracy which just as a dumb "data must be encrypted" policy,
just use full disk encryption and state that all data is encrypted on
disk" and your done.

Tim

--
Tim Cross

--
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.

Thanks Ron, I was trying to find that -- memory had it down as "Persona"
and I could not find that, haha.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 8:39 PM Ron <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks a lot for the valuable information and apologies I didn't provide
specify that the requirement is to encrypt data at rest and in transit.

Regards
Vikas

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 21:56 Vick Khera <vivek@khera.org> wrote:

Hi Folks,

I would like to add to the list FUJITSU Software Enterprise Postgres as well, a commercial version of FSEP offers both TDE (AES 128 / 256) and Data Masking features

PremierSQL TDE
MariaDB 10.1.3+
MySQL 5.7.11+
Microsoft uses TDE
Oracle AdvSec uses TDE
DB2 v7.2 UDB
MangoDB uses AES-256
PostgreSQL does - but the key is public (dumb)
FUJITSU Enterprise Postgres 9.5 (TDE / DM)

Best Regards,

Nawaz Ahmed
Software Development Engineer

Fujitsu Australia Software Technology Pty Ltd
14 Rodborough Road, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086, Australia
T +61 2 9452 9027
Nawaz@fast.au.fujitsu.com<mailto:Nawaz@fast.au.fujitsu.com>
fastware.com.au<http://fastware.com.au/&gt;

[cid:image001.jpg@01D3DD46.08B33D90]
[cid:image002.jpg@01D3DD46.08B33D90]

From: Ozz Nixon [mailto:ozznixon@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 21 April 2018 10:43 AM
To: Ron <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com>
Cc: pgsql-general@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Postgresql database encryption

Thanks Ron, I was trying to find that -- memory had it down as "Persona" and I could not find that, haha.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 8:39 PM Ron <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com<mailto:ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com>> wrote:

Also, Percona (a MySQL fork) 5.7.
On 04/20/2018 07:31 PM, Ozz Nixon wrote:
PS. the following database servers do offer internal encryption on a page/block oriented read/write (for encrypted data at rest security requirements)
PremierSQL TDE
MariaDB 10.1.3+
MySQL 5.7.11+
Microsoft uses TDE
Oracle AdvSec uses TDE
DB2 v7.2 UDB
MangoDB uses AES-256
PostgreSQL does - but the key is public (dumb) /messages/by-id/CA+CSw_tb3bk5i7if6inZFc3yyf+9HEVNTy51QFBoeUk7UE_V=w@mail.gmail.com
Just because you do not see the reason for it, does not make the reason a bad idea.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 8:19 PM Ozz Nixon <ozznixon@gmail.com<mailto:ozznixon@gmail.com>> wrote:
Well, actually since 2003, this has been a standard requirement from the Credit Card industry. And it does make sense in the field of "while at rest" the data still cannot be accessed.
Requirement 1. No NPI data should be displayed without controls - e.g. reports, PDF, etc.
Requirement 2. Same data, must be secured during transmission - fetching to client screen etc.
Requirement 3. NPI data should not be logged nor stored on a physical device in non-encrypted mode.
There are more steps to this, but, to chalk it off as another half-assed required is typical. Hashing is a useful one-way technique, however, trapping the hash made using a hash useless! When I worked for the credit bureaus we ran encrypted drive arrays, DB/2 encrypted, SSL/TLS encryption over P2P VPN connections, and masked output fields when the data would go to reports or screens to PCs outside our control.
Anyone with Linux and use LUKS encryption on an LVM partition to achieve security where the database may not, or logs or something may exist where NPI might be see. Oh yeah, NPI (Non-Pubic Information, like your social, you bank account, you paycheck information, etc. things that should not exist outside of controls)...
PS. You cannot simply take a drive from one machine to another, when doing proper RAID and LUKS encryption.
Ozz
15 years experience with federal data security requirements.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 7:55 PM Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com<mailto:theophilusx@gmail.com>> wrote:

Vikas Sharma <shavikas@gmail.com<mailto:shavikas@gmail.com>> writes:

Hello Guys,

Could someone throw light on the postgresql instance wide or database wide
encryption please? Is this possible in postgresql and been in use in
production?.

This is a requirement in our production implementation.

This sounds like a lazy management requirement specified for 'security'
purposes by people with little understanding of either technology or
security. I suspect it comes form a conversation that went along the
lines of ....

"There has been lots in the news about cyber threats"

"Yes, we need our system to be secure"

"I know, lets make one of the requirements that everything must be
encrypted, that will stop them"

"Great idea, I'll add it as requirement 14".

This is a very poor requirement because it is not adequately specified,
but more critically, because it is specifying a 'solution' rather than
articulating the requirement in a way which would allow those with the
necessary expertise to derive an appropriate solution - one which may or
may not involve encryption or hashing of data and which may or may not
be at the database level.

What you really need to do is go back to your stakeholders and ask them
a lot of questions to extract what the real requirement is. Try to find
out what risk they are trying to mitigate with encryption. Once this is
understood, then look at what the technology can do and work out the
design/implementation from there.

It is extremely unlikely you just want all the data in the database
encrypted. When you think about it, such an approach really doesn't make
sense. In basic terms, if the data is encrypted, the database engine
will need to be able to decrypt it in order to operate (consider how a
where clause needs to be able to interpret actions etc). If the db can
read the data, the keys must be in the database. If the keys are in the
database and your database is compromised, then your keys are
compromised. So provided you protect your database from compromise, you
achieve the same level of security as you do with full data encryption
EXCEPT for access to the underlying data files outside of the database
system. For this, you will tend to use some sort of file system
encryption, which is typically managed at the operating system
level. Again, for the operating system to be able to read the file
system, the OS must have access to the decryption keys, so if your OS is
compromised, then that level of protection is lost as well (well, that
is over simplified, but you get the idea). What this level of protection
does give you is data at rest protection - if someone is able to access
hour disks through some other means, they cannot read the data. This is
the same principal most people should be using with their
laptops. Protect the OS with a password and have the data on disk
encrypted. Provided nobody can login to your laptop, they cannot read
your data. Without this encryption, you can just take the disk out of
the laptop, mount it on another system and you have full access. With
disk encryption, you cannot do that. Same basic principal with the
server.

At the database level, a more typical approach is to use one way hashing
for some sensitive data (i.e. passwords) and possibly column level
encryption on a specific column (much rarer) or just well structured
security policies and user roles that restrict who has access to various
tables/columns. To implement this successfully, you need details
regarding the domain, sensitivity of various data elements and the
threats you need to protect against. If you cannot get this information
because your stakeholders don't really know what their risks are and
have not done a proper assessment and what you are really dealing with
is bureaucracy which just as a dumb "data must be encrypted" policy,
just use full disk encryption and state that all data is encrypted on
disk" and your done.

Tim

--
Tim Cross

--
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.
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