Boaz Gelbord wrote a thoughtful response (as did Mike Andrews) to my post earlier this week on the state of web application and data security. In it was one key tidbit on encryption:

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The truth is that you just don’t mitigate that much risk by encrypting files at rest in a reasonably secure environment. Of course if a random account or service is compromised on a server, having those database files encrypted would sure come in handy. But for your database or file folder encryption to actually save you from anything, some other control needs to fail.

I wouldn’t say this is always true, but it’s generally true. In fact, this situation was the inspiration behind the Three Laws of Data Encryption I wrote a few years ago. The thing is, access controls work really freaking well, and the only reason to use encryption instead of them is if the data is moving, or you need to somehow restrict the data with greater granularity than is possible with access controls. For most systems, this is to protect data from administrators, since you can manage everyone else with access controls.

Also keep in mind that many current data encryption systems tie directly to the user’s authentication, and thus are just as prone to compromised user accounts as are access controls.

Again, not true in all cases, but true in many. The first step in encryption is to know what threat you are protecting against, and if other controls would be just as effective. Seriously, we toss encryption around as the answer all the time, without knowing what the question is.

(My favorite question/answer? Me: Why are you encrypting. Them: To protect against hackers. Me: Um. Cool. You have a bathroom anywhere?)

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