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Learn why choosing against the encryption of personal info in your SQL Server database can leave your organization vulnerable to certain compliance issues.  Read more...

The company I work for has decided to use the encryption technology available in SQL Server 2005. We have almost everything ironed out except for which keys to use in the development, testing, and production environments. Should we use one key for all three environments or different keys for each?  Read more...

In the recent installments of our "SQL Server 2005 Express Edition" series we have been discussing mechanisms that facilitate authentication of distributed systems participating in Service Broker conversations. This article discusses use of digital certificates in encrypting their content on the transport level.  Read more...

Databases often contain sensitive information and cell-level encryption is a very effective method to protect this information from those who should not have access to it. Although, encryption is not without its challenges.  Read more...

This white paper presents an overview of cryptographic functionality and discusses how this applies to authentication, signed procedures, permissions, and encryption. Because the target audience is the database professional and not necessarily security experts, the focus is on practical ways to use cryptography in SQL Server.  Read more...

Part 2 of this article discusses how to hack/de-cipher the data that has been encrypted by passphrase.  Read more...

SQL Server 2005 provides four methods of encryption. Part one of this article covers encryption and decryption by passphrase.  Read more...

Study encryption and hashing algorithm options for data security in SQL Server 2005 and use symmetric/asymmetric keys to encrypt and decrypt SQL Server data.  Read more...

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a National Institute of Standards and Technology specification for the encryption of electronic data. It is expected to become the accepted means of encrypting digital information, including financial, telecommunications, and government data. This article presents an overview of AES and explains the algorithms it uses. Included is a complete C# implementation and examples of encrypting .NET data. After reading this article you will be able to encrypt data using AES, test AES-based software, and use AES encryption in your systems.  Read more...