We have a team of sales persons who travel often carrying a laptop loaded with Sales data in a SQL Server Express database. What are the options available to encrypt a SQL Server Express database?
A:
Why would you want to encrypt the full database? I am just thinking that it may be a performance overhead. I have seen passwords encrypted before but never the full database.
Burt
2009-11-11 11:40:21
This should be a comment ;-)
Shoban
2009-11-11 11:43:43
+2
A:
What's your threat model? Are you trying to stop a casual thief who's stolen a laptop, or a determined hacker? Are you trying to protect just the data, or also the schema?
If you're using SQL Server Express 2005 or higher, then it supports native asymmetric encryption. But if you're trying to stop a determined hacker, then I think the best option would be to encrypt the whole disk using something like TrueCrypt, or BitLocker for Vista/Windows7.
RoadWarrior
2009-11-11 11:52:24
Trying to protect just the data, which may include confidential sales information of a Company. We are using SQL Server Express 2008 and the OS is Windows XP, so BitLocker wont help us. I'm exploring native asymmetric encryption on SQL Express.
Raj
2009-11-11 18:09:36