InnoDB, MySQL’s storage engine, offers transparent data encryption (TDE) for your sensitive data-at-rest. It secures the tablespaces via a “two tier encryption key architecture” that consists of:

• Tablespace encryption keys that encrypt the tablespaces.
• A master encryption key that encrypts the tablespace keys.

The only thing that you must add is a trusted, third-party encryption key manager. But more on that later.

With these items in hand, the system works like this:

• A tablespace is encrypted, generating a tablespace encryption key.
• The tablespace key is encrypted via the master key.
• The encrypted tablespace key is stored locally in the tablespace header.
• The master key is stored in a trusted, third-party encryption key manager.
• The master key’s full lifecycle is managed via the encryption key manager.

In this way, when a user or application needs to access the encrypted data, they just need to authenticate that they are authorized to access the data. From there, InnoDB uses the master key to decrypt the tablespace key and tablespace key is used to decrypt the data. The end user never sees this process, it is transparent to them.

Advantages of Using MySQL Encryption

Meets Compliance Regulations

Organizations are under increasing pressure to comply with a patchwork of compliance regulations. The good news, MySQL Enterprise edition uses standards based AES encryption for data-at-rest and is also KMIP compatible, so centralized key managers can plug-in to properly manage the master keys. Here are a few compliance regulations that MySQL Enterprise encryption helps you comply with:

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

Nick Trenc, IT Security Architect at Coalfire Labs, had this to say about encryption and PCI DSS compliance:

One of the key components to the protection of cardholder data at any merchant location is the use of strong cryptography along with just-as-strong cryptographic key management procedures. PCI DSS Requirement 3 outlines what the PCI council believes to be the baseline for strong cryptographic key management procedures and is a key element of any PCI DSS audit.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

According to GDPR, your security controls must be adequate to account for the risk of accidental, unlawful, or unauthorized disclosure or loss of personal data. If you are not adequately prepared to fend off attacks from hackers or unscrupulous employees and prevent a data breach, you could face stiff fines and lawsuits. Only proper encryption and centralized key management will ensure that should an attack occur, the data will be useless to the attacker.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

Here is what Patrick Townsend said about encryption and CCPA:

If you want to avoid the risk of direct or class action litigation related to data loss you should encrypt the sensitive data. Individual and class action litigation only applies to unencrypted sensitive data that is disclosed or lost, for whatever reason. The CCPA is clear on the need for encryption. If you lose unencrypted sensitive data this is direct evidence that you violated your duty to provide reasonable security procedures and practices to protect the sensitive information.

The good news: enabling MySQL Enterprise encryption, coupled with encryption key management, will help keep you in compliance with these regulations. If you are protecting cardholder data, consumer data, or just internal HR records, encrypting that data with MySQL’s TDE will help you meet compliance and keep that sensitive data safe.

Easy to Deploy

MySQL encryption is easy to configure. Entire databases can be encrypted with just a few command line edits. Here are some selected examples from MySQL’s Reference Manual:

• To enable encryption for a new file-per-table tablespace:
• mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (c1 INT) ENCRYPTION='Y';
• To enable encryption for an existing file-per-table tablespace:
• mysql> ALTER TABLE t1 ENCRYPTION='Y';
• To disable encryption for file-per-table tablespace:
• mysql> ALTER TABLE t1 ENCRYPTION='N';

Alliance Key Manager also makes this process easy. Since we are fully integrated with MySQL Enterprise, the configuration process is pretty straight forward. Many times, you can be up and running in a matter of minutes.

KMIP Compatible

As MySQL Enterprise encryption is KMIP 1.1 compatible, you can easily deploy your prefered key manager to manage your encryption keys. This means you are able to use a FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption key manager, like our Alliance Key Manager.

How It Works

MySQL Enterprise has made protecting your sensitive data easy. What’s more, setting up Alliance Key Manager for MySQL is easy as well. Here’s how it works:

• First, install and set up the primary and failover Alliance Key Manager servers.
• Download the admin authentication certificates from the Alliance Key Manager server to create a secure TLS connection and perform authentication.
• Then, create a directory to store your KMIP config file and store certificates needed for the Alliance Key Manager admin / client connection.
• Next, you will need to specify your primary key server and high availability failover key server.
• Finally, create a master key in Alliance Key Manager and use that to encrypt your tablespace keys in MySQL.

That's it, you have successfully encrypted your MySQL Enterprise database and properly managed the keys! To learn how Alliance Key Manager can help you easily protect your sensitive data in MySQL.

Final Thoughts

Encrypting your sensitive data in with MySQL’s Enterprise encryption has these advantages:

• It’s standards based AES-256 encryption. This means that your data is secured with the encryption algorithm that NIST recommends.
• It’s KMIP compliant. Your encryption is only strong if your keys are secure. With a trusted third-party key manager protecting your master keys, your encryption will remain strong.
• The encryption is transparent to users and applications. No manual processes are needed to access the databases. The data is there, on demand, for all authorized users and applications.

If you haven’t taken advantage of MySQL encryption, now is the time. MySQL encryption makes it simple. Alliance Key Manager makes it secure. Talk to us today.

Well, that did not take long.

34 days after the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect on January 1, 2020, a lawsuit was filed against retailer Hanna Andersson and cloud service provider Salesforce for a data breach where sensitive information was not properly protected. Information about approximately 10,000 California customers were exposed on the dark web. The information apparently included customer names, addresses, credit card numbers, CVV codes, and card expiration dates. Everything a cybercriminal needs to execute financial fraud. What a haul!

The fine under the CCPA can be up to $750 per record, making the liability cost in this case about $7.5 million - and that is only a part of the picture. Litigation costs will be large and there may be fines from the California Department of Justice and from other governmental entities. Hanna Andersson is a relatively small retailer with approximately 60 stores, 400 employees and annual revenue around $140M. Losses of this size are painful.

Here is a good article about the data breach, and it has a link to the actual lawsuit:

CCPA Cited in Hanna Andersson/Salesforce Breach Lawsuit 

Let me share a few thoughts with you.

First, let’s not forget that the villains in this case are the cybercriminals who perpetrated this crime against Hanna Andersson and Salesforce, and ultimately against the individuals who will experience identity theft and financial fraud. Could Hanna Andersson and Salesforce have done more to prevent this data breach? Certainly yes. But in the early years of my IT career I worked for companies like Hanna Andersson. I worked with wonderful, amazing, dedicated IT professionals and my sympathies are with them, too. Salesforce has been a moral leader in an industry that has seemed at times to lack a moral compass and I admire the values that Marc Benioff and his company have promoted over these last few years.

But this lawsuit is a harbinger of things to come. Ignoring the new landscape of regulatory compliance is dangerous.

Here are some takeaways that I hope will be helpful:

• We are all moving our IT infrastructure to the cloud. The financial and operational benefits are overwhelming and this migration to the cloud will not change. However, we have not properly accepted responsibility for the security of our applications and data in the cloud. Our cloud service provider, whomever it is, will not protect us. Own and embrace your security posture now, no one else will do it for you.
• The California Consumer Privacy Act puts the onus on businesses to protect consumer sensitive data. This may not be fair, but it is now a fact of life and other states will certainly follow California’s lead. The CCPA mandates that businesses protect consumer information with encryption if they want to avoid these types of lawsuits. That’s where we are, and that is what you need to do.
• We have fully arrived in the land of Zero Trust. All of your systems in the cloud and on-premise are at risk. If you haven’t done an inventory of your systems with sensitive data, this is the first thing to do. Knowing where sensitive data resides provides you with a map to address adding the protections that are needed.
• Prioritize the systems based on risk. Which systems have the most sensitive data? Which are more exposed to a data breach? Which databases will be the easiest to mitigate? The prioritized list does not have to be perfect, but you need one as soon as possible.
• Get started with your encryption projects. Some databases make this easy to do. If you have Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB, or MySQL, you have a clear and fast path to add encryption through native database support. If you have databases or storage that do not support native encryption, consider migrating them to VMware vSAN encrypted storage for these applications. 
• On your way to encrypting your sensitive data, don’t forget about encryption key management. One of the changes that came with CCPA is the requirement to store encryption keys away from the sensitive data. Most databases give you the option of storing the encryption key on the same server as the data. Don’t do this, you will lose all of the protections you need under CCPA.

Here at Townsend Security we help organizations large and small achieve the highest level of data protection. It won’t cost you an arm and a leg, either. The days of overpriced encryption and key management solutions are over. Talk to us about our Alliance Key Manager solution for protecting your data.

Patrick

Ahhhh, Amazon Web Services (AWS) are so delightfully inexpensive, aren’t they? The AWS Key Management Service (KMS) is one of those really inexpensive services that many of us love to use. For many AWS customers AWS KMS isn’t even noticeable on your bill.

Or, is it?

Increased private data in the cloud requires more encryption keys. What happens when more and more projects are moved to the AWS cloud? Many organizations are assigning each database user their own key, which is a great strategy to deal with GDPR and CCPA. The number of keys starts to go up quickly, and your AWS KMS cost goes up with them. Here is something that happened to one of our customers who had a growing need for keys.

Here is something that happened to one of our customers who had a growing need for keys:

They decided to use a separate encryption key for each of their customers. The idea was to encrypt with an encryption key unique to each customer. When they needed to delete the customer data they only needed to delete the encryption key for that customer. With lots of customers they soon had thousands of encryption keys. And they were shocked when a really large Amazon bill came due for those keys. AWS charges $1.00 for each key and it adds up really fast. So some caution is in order.

Is there any way to avoid the high cost of AWS KMS for multiple keys?

Yes there is. Our Alliance Key Manager in AWS solution can be deployed right in the AWS cloud at a low monthly cost, with no charge per encryption key. Whether you need 10 encryption keys, or 100,000 encryption keys, the cost is the same. And we don’t count the number of endpoints, either. So, the cost remains the same even as you increase your data protection.

Besides a lower cost for key management, there are other benefits to deploying our key manager in AWS:

• You have exclusive access to the key manager – unlike AWS KMS, it isn’t shared with Amazon (or us).
• You can deploy redundant key managers (product and high availability) across different AWS geographic regions.
• You can mirror your encryption keys from AWS to an on-premise key manager.
• You can deploy replicating key managers across multiple clouds.
• You have full support for encryption of databases like SQL Server, MySQL, MongoDB, and others.

When you need a lot of encryption keys in AWS, our Alliance Key Manager is a winner. We don’t charge per key, you have flexible options to deploy key management in the cloud and on premises, you will save a lot of money over AWS KMS, and you will have a dedicated Enterprise key management solution that you don’t share with anyone. You will be deploying a true cloud neutral key management solution.

Talk to us to find out more details about the benefits of deploying Alliance Key Manager for AWS for your organization.

Patrick

In October of 2019 I blogged about the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and its impacts on businesses. I knew that a lot of businesses were aware of the CCPA coming into effect on January 1, 2020, but I thought that there was a lot of misinformation and confusion about the CCPA. In that blog I laid out a number of facts about CCPA and some suggestions on actions you can take. I also noted that the law was very likely to get an update by the end of the year. You can find that original blog here:

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) - Things You Need To Know

Well, that update to CCPA and related notification laws has happened. Several new laws were enacted in December 2019 that clarify and modify the CCPA. While the broad requirements of CCPA remain intact, there were some changes that bear noting.

One important change relates to encryption key management and breach notification. Let’s do a deeper dive.

First, it is important to note the role that encryption of sensitive information plays in CCPA. Among other things, the CCPA dramatically empowers consumers to recover damages after a data breach of unencrypted data, and limits the ability of businesses to inhibit that recovery. Here are a few aspects of CCPA law:

• Businesses are not allowed to limit the ability of consumers to seek recovery. The widely used practice of liability limitation, arbitration clauses, and so forth are prohibited.
• The California Department of Justice can levy steep fines on businesses that suffer a data breach and who have not adequately protected sensitive data.
• Consumers are empowered to bring class action lawsuits around a data breach to recover damages. This kind of litigation is specifically enabled by the CCPA and should scare covered businesses.
• However, class action lawsuits are only allowed with the loss of unencrypted sensitive data. Encryption is your friend!

So, what is different with the new laws?

AB1130 is one of those recent bills that modifies the CCPA notification requirements. It retains the litigation protections provided by encryption, but further clarifies that encryption keys must be properly protected. Here is what AB1130 says about breach notification (extracted and highlight added):

SECTION 1. Section 1798.29 of the Civil Code is amended to read:

1798.29. (a) Any agency that owns or licenses computerized data that includes personal information shall disclose any breach of the security of the system following discovery or notification of the breach in the security of the data to any resident of California (1) whose unencrypted personal information was, or is reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person, or, (2) whose encrypted personal information was, or is reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person and the encryption key or security credential was, or is reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person and the agency that owns or licenses the encrypted information has a reasonable belief that the encryption key or security credential could render that personal information readable or usable. The disclosure shall be made in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, consistent with the legitimate needs of law enforcement, as provided in subdivision (c), or any measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and restore the reasonable integrity of the data system.

The full text of AB1130 is here:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB1130

Security professionals know that encryption is only as good as the protection you provide to the encryption key. The CCPA notification rules now embed that understanding right in the law. And you must understand what this means in terms of your litigation protections.

Let’s take one example:

Microsoft SQL Server is a widely used database for business information. SQL Server implements Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) to protect all data in the database. And it gives you two options for storing encryption keys:

• Local storage of the key on the same server as the database.
• Remote storage of the key by integrating with a professional key management system.

A lot of Microsoft SQL Server customers store the key locally on the same server as the database. Why? Well, it is easy and free. 

Here is the problem:

It is trivially easy for a cybercriminal to recover a locally stored encryption key if they have access to the server or a backup of the server. In fact, there are ready made programs that will just recover the key for the hacker and unlock the encrypted data, in just a few seconds. This is a prime example of where poor encryption key management will damage your ability to limit notification and liability under CCPA. Don’t expect to argue that the key was properly protected. Every security professional knows how poorly protected a locally stored key is.

Is there a way to mitigate this poor encryption key strategy?

Yes. 

Microsoft SQL server also supports remote encryption key management systems through a special interface known as Extensible Key Management, or EKM. You don’t have to store the key locally - you can easily plug in a key management system and protect the encryption key properly as the CCPA recommends. Problem solved, from a CCPA perspective. Our own Alliance Key Manager supports remote key management through the EKM interface.

Here are a few takeaways:

• Under the CCPA, encryption is a critical part of your compliance strategy, and your strategy to limit liability after a data breach. It is hard to overstate the importance of encryption.
• When you do encryption, you have to manage the keys properly. Use a professional key management system like our affordable Alliance Key Manager to accomplish this. Alliance Key Manager is NIST FIPS 140-2 compliant which is the gold standard for key management certification.
• If you are currently storing the key locally, it is easy to move to a proper key management system. It usually just takes a few minutes.
• There is no such thing as a good, secure method to store keys locally with your data. Just don’t do it.
• Key management systems are now affordable and easy to deploy. We can prove it!

The California Consumer Privacy Act and subsequent laws change everything in terms of how we process and protect sensitive data. Encrypting that sensitive data, and protecting the encryption key, is not hard and is within reach of every business. 

Talk to us. We’ll show you how fast and easy it is to meet this part of the new CCPA and notification regulations.

Patrick

P.S. I don’t mean to pick on Microsoft SQL Server here. The same issue applies to almost every commercial and open source relational and NoSQL database! 

This last November (Nov. 6-8, 2019) we had a chance to participate in the 21st annual PASS Summit in Seattle as an exhibitor. It was a great time as SQL Server professionals from around the world attended. We had an opportunity to ask them about their company's encryption and key management practices. Below are the results as well as some expert weigh-in on the findings. Enjoy!

The SQL Server Encryption Survey—2019

A special thanks to our contributors for their expertise and guidance. You all are clear-minded professionals that have a lot to offer those looking to better secure their data:

-Ed Leighton-Dick, Kingfisher Technologies
-Tim Roncevich, CyberGuard Compliance
-Justin Garren, LyntonWeb
-Sharon Kleinerman, Townsend Security
-Patrick Townsend, Townsend Security

If you are looking to protect your encryption keys for your sensitive data in SQL Server, you need a FIPS 140-2 compliant centralized key manager that:

• Never charges you additional fees for connecting a new end-point.
• Never limits the number of end-points based on the model of the KMS.
• Never limits the number of encryption keys generated or stored.
• Never forces you to pay extra fees for software patches.
• Never forces you to pay extra fees for routine software upgrades.
• Always gives you unmatched customer service.
• Always protects your keys, 24/7.

You need Alliance Key Manager for SQL Server.

Alliance Key Manager, featuring full support for VMware encryption of VMs and vSAN, is now available free of charge to VMware vExperts.

Townsend Security today announced that it offers free Not for Resale (NFR) licenses to VMware vExperts for Alliance Key Manager, their FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption key management server (KMS). The NFR license keys are available for non-production use only, including educational, lab testing, evaluation, training, and demonstration purposes. NFR Licenses are available here.

Alliance Key Manager enables VMware customers to use native vSphere encryption for VMs and vSAN to protect VMware images and digital assets while deploying a secure and compliant key management server (KMS). VMware users can deploy multiple, redundant (HA) key servers as a part of the KMS Cluster configuration for maximum resilience and high availability. The key manager is certified by VMware for use with vSphere version 6.5 and later, and for vSAN version 6.6 and later. 

Using the advanced cryptographic permissions in VMware vCenter Server, along with a KMS, VMware users can prevent internal/external threats and protect sensitive workloads. In addition to supporting vSphere encryption of VMs and vSAN, Alliance Key Manager supports application and database encryption deployed in VMware virtual servers.

“We are excited to provide VMware vExperts with Alliance Key Manager, our encryption key management server (KMS) for their test labs,” said Patrick Townsend, CEO of Townsend Security. “Protecting sensitive data continues to be a critical concern in IT, and an important part of both security and compliance efforts. Data-at-rest encryption options in vSphere are comprehensive and very easy to use. Alliance Key Manager seamlessly integrates with VMware’s encryption capabilities.”

Townsend Security is a VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) and Alliance Key Manager for VMware has achieved VMware Ready status.   VMware vExperts can request an NFR license of Alliance Key Manager for VMware here.

I might as well start the New Year with an admission and an apology. Let’s clear the slate.

In the past I’ve minimized the use of encryption as a specific way to deter Ransomware attacks. My thinking was that encryption would not really help you if your systems are compromised by Ransomeware. After all, my thinking was, the data is still on your servers it just isn’t accessible because it is now encrypted with a key that you don’t have. Of course, you can pay the ransom to unlock your data. There are lots of good reasons to encrypt sensitive data, but I was not seeing encryption as a specific way to specifically minimize the risks associated with Ransomware.

I believed that your best defense against ransomware was to have good backups and be prepared to restore systems quickly from those backups. A lot of our customers had become lax in their backup strategy, and this left them exposed to Ransomware attacks. They just weren’t able to quickly restore from backups, or those backups did not exist, or they were not current enough.

I failed to understand the evolving nature of Ransomware threats. It simply did not occur to me that a cybercriminal would BOTH lock your data AND steal the data and threaten to release it if the ransom payment was not made. That is exactly what is happening now. 

It is now clear to me that encrypting your sensitive data is an important part of your defense against Ransomware attacks. If the attacker cannot access the data, they can’t threaten its release to put pressure on you. So it is time to revisit your security strategy around Ransomware:

• Backups are still important. They are a first line defense against Ransomware.
• Your backup strategy is not complete until you fully test the restore process. You will always find glitches during the test of the restore operation. You don’t want to be finding these glitches during a Ransomware recovery process.
• Encrypt all sensitive data to deny its use by attackers.
• Use proper encryption key management as a part of your encryption strategy. Locally stored encryption keys (SQL Server, MongoDB, MySQL, and so forth) are easy to recover. If you are not protecting the encryption keys you don’t have an encryption strategy.

There is much more that you need to do to protect against Ransomware, but these items are crucial to your strategy. 

Encryption has many other benefits including helping you meet compliance regulations (California CPA, etc.), helping you minimize reputational damage, helping you protect digital assets and business secrets, and much more. It is time to review your encryption strategy and plug any holes.

If you are a small organization you don’t have to feel left out in the cold. Here at Townsend Security we help small organizations get encryption and key management right. You are NOT priced out of the market. If you are a small organization ask us about our SMB plan.

Patrick

Alliance Key Manager for IBM Cloud for VMware provides encryption and key management to help IBM Cloud for VMware customers meet data privacy compliance regulations and security best practices.

Townsend Security today announced Alliance Key Manager, its affordable FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption key manager, is available for IBM Cloud for VMware. By running Alliance Key Manager for IBM Cloud for VMware, enterprises can encrypt VMs and vSAN virtual directories and protect private information in their applications and databases with a dedicated key manager - with no access to encryption keys by IBM.

Working with VMware and Coalfire, Townsend Security’s Alliance Key Manager achieved compliance with PCI-DSS when implemented on a standard VMware reference architecture. Support for the PCI-DSS standard has smoothed the path to compliance for VMware customers in IBM Cloud. Additionally, Alliance Key Manager for IBM Cloud for VMware can also help businesses meet other compliance regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, GLBA/FFIEC, FISMA, etc.

“Customers want to experience regulatory compliance out-of-the-box. They don’t want to have to engage in lengthy audits and security validations in order to deploy applications to the cloud. PCI-DSS is one of those key indicator regulations and our commitment to provide proven regulatory compliance is a great benefit to our VMware customers,” said Patrick Townsend, CEO of Townsend Security. “We take data security compliance issues off of the table and this really helps our customers. With this announcement we are extending formal support for our solutions to the IBM Cloud for VMware.”

As enterprises move to IBM Cloud they bring their sensitive data with them. With Alliance Key Manager for IBM Cloud for VMware, organizations can encrypt their VMs and vSAN storage that are managed by vSphere. Leveraging the KMIP interface in vSphere users can define one or more key managers to protect the encryption keys used to encrypt VMs and vSAN. Alliance Key Manager is certified by VMware for all versions of vSphere and vSAN that support encryption.

“Encrypting VMs and vSAN storage provides a rapid path to meeting security best practices and compliance regulations. There is no limit to the number of VMs or vSAN storage pools that you can protect,” continued Townsend. “I am proud of our team for creating a truly affordable solution for VMware key management. Small businesses should contact us for information about special small business pricing.”

Alliance Key Manager for IBM Cloud for VMware is available for a free 30-day evaluation.

Like Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition users, SQL Server 2019 Standard Edition users can now easily meet compliance regulations (PCI DSS, GDPR, CCPA, etc.) and protect private data like customer PII and intellectual property without modifying existing applications or the database.  By using the database’s Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) capability, coupled with Extensible Key Management (EKM), and an encryption key manager, organizations can protect their private data at a lower cost.

I recently sat down with Patrick Townsend, Founder and CEO of Townsend Security to talk about TDE in Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Standard Edition and what it means for smaller businesses who don’t have Enterprise Edition, as well as deploying encryption key management in the cloud.

Patrick,  It was great to see Microsoft bring Transparent Data Encryption to the standard edition of SQL Server 2019.

We were pleased to see Microsoft announced that SQL Server 2019 Standard Edition would support Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and Extensible Key Management (EKM).  By doing this, Microsoft was able to bring encryption and proper key management to a huge user base and not require them to make application changes, which can be a barrier for some companies.  TDE and EKM were originally introduced back in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, so the technology itself has been around a while. There are a lot of users of the Standard Edition of SQL Server and by lowering the technical and financial bar to protecting private data, companies of all sizes can easily protect their private information - including customer information and IP.

As you mentioned, TDE and EKM are considered a pretty mature technology at this point.  You have had an EKM provider for Enterprise Edition for over 10 years, right?

Yes! Since the initial release of TDE and EKM in Microsoft SQL Server 2008, we have been proud to offer an affordable, industry leading solution - and now extend that to SQL Server Standard Edition users.  As far as platforms go, we started a decade ago with a hardware security module (HSM), though most of our customers are now running VMware environments or are in the cloud (AWS, Azure, IBM Cloud). Fortunately, because all of the platforms that we offer our key manager on run exactly the same software, we are able to maintain our FIPS 140-2 compliance.  We even have customers running hybrid deployments with key managers in the cloud and on-premises.

It is really easy to get started as well.  Deploying an enterprise encryption key management solution  used to take several months and lots of resources but can now be done relatively quickly.  Essentially, here is what you need to do:

• Set up Alliance Key Manager (just takes a few minutes)
• Install our EKM provider software on your instance of SQL Server
• Configure SQL Server
• Turn on TDE

That’s it!  It is a very straightforward deployment.

By using standards based encryption, Microsoft is positioning their customers for success.  But they still leave key management up to the customer.

Yes, and standards are just as important with key management as they are with encryption.  People often think that the encryption algorithm is the secret part of securing data and don’t realize the importance of key management.  Only YOU should have access to your encryption keys - and this goes for administration of the key manager as well. Enterprises need to look for a FIPS 140-2 validation and avoid multi-tenant solutions offered by CSPs.  On more than one occasion I have heard customers say that prior to using Alliance Key Manager they were storing their keys in an Excel spreadsheet, on a USB key, or even burnt in their application code. Not very secure locations, to say the least, and the keys were very likely not “cryptographically strong.” Encryption keys based on passwords will never meet minimum standards for strong encryption keys. Keys should be generated using a cryptographically secure random bit generator (CS-RBG) validated to international standards.

On the topic of Cloud Service Provider key management, while key management solutions offered by CSPs can provide some convenience, they leave an organization’s encryption keys accessible to third-party administrators - increasing the risk to their security posture.  Finally, bringing it back to SQL Server, remember, it is poor security practice to store encryption keys locally to the SQL Server database. It takes a hacker just a few seconds to recover those keys!

Let’s dive into this a little deeper, because I think there is a little confusion in the market. I attend Pass every year, and when people think about key management, they sometimes talk about using open source software or even storing their encryption keys in something like “Last Pass”.

People need to understand that an encryption key manager is more than just a secure key store.  A key manager like our Alliance Key Manager creates and manages encryption keys through their entire lifecycle.

I’d like to elaborate a little more on CSP-offered key managers like AWS KMS or Azure Key Vault, since I think many people are familiar with these offerings.  If you look at Information Supplement: PCI SSC Cloud Computing Guidelines, you’ll find them state: 

“Because compromise of a Provider could result in unauthorized access to multiple data stores, it is recommended that cryptographic keys used to encrypt/decrypt sensitive data be stored and managed independently from the cloud service where the data is located.”

This is a pretty common sense warning from the PCI Security Standards Council.  Consolidating services under one shared umbrella dramatically increases an organization’s risk.

True Key Management Systems (KMS) need to go where your data goes - on-premise, cloud, multi-cloud, or VMware.  Alliance Key Manager is a full enterprise key management system. The AWS KMS, for example, is a key storage facility and can’t leave the AWS cloud, which provides CSP lockin.

And when thinking about the security principles of Confidentiality and Availability, it just doesn’t make sense to use something other than a full-fledged key manager.

You’re right.  Again, with Confidentiality, you don’t want your CSP to have administrative access to your keys.  In terms of Availability what about high availability? What if you need to run applications that deal with private data in multiple clouds?  By using an enterprise level key manager, enterprises can rely on a centralized key manager to protect their data regardless of where it resides or will in the future.

Also, for those who are using older versions of SQL Server Standard Edition, you can use Netlib's Encryptionizer along with our Key Connection for Encryptionizer to transparently encrypt private data.

To hear this conversation in its entirety, download our podcast SQL Server Standard Edition & TDE to hear Patrick Townsend further discuss encrypting data in Microsoft SQL Server Standard 2019, encryption key management in the cloud, and the importance of data security standards.

(Part one of this series deals with VM encryption. This post will cover vSAN encryption)

The Rise of Storage Area Networks

Nowadays, VMware vSAN provides hyper-converged storage for the enterprise business. As VMware puts it, “in addition to being incredibly simple to deploy and provision, Virtual SAN allows you to scale storage and compute resources, eliminating costly forklift upgrades.”

But, as most know, vSAN, first released in 2014, did not grow in a vacuum. Physical SANs started to gain traction in the early 2000’s as our need for data storage exploded. The SANS Institute, in 2002, highlighted these trends and the advantages that a SAN provided:

• Higher availability of systems and applications
• Costly IT purchases reduced
• Higher scalability of storage architecture
• Increased IT staff efficiency
• Higher ability to utilize the full value of a company’s information assets

But even though a SAN brought these advantages to its user, it had one major limitation: Storage administrators were still tied to managing the data via where it physically lived, needing to pre-allocate storage on various servers.

vSAN, however, overcomes the limitations of a purely physical SAN. Since vSAN is a software layer that sits on-top of the server, it allows for greater flexibility of your storage capacity. According to MicroAge:

“vSAN is software-defined storage that enables organizations to pool storage capabilities and automatically provision virtual machine storage. They can dynamically scale performance and storage capacity as needed and render underlying physical storage accessible to virtual machines through a policy-driven control pane. [O]rganizations use SANs to interconnect shared pools of storage devices to different servers. vSAN extends this local storage to a shareable storage in each server, enabling other servers to access data over the LAN without a traditional shared storage device.”

Another advantage of vSAN: greater (and much easier to implement) data security. With version 6.6 of vSAN, VMware introduced native encryption for your data-at-rest. vSAN encryption is baked right into vSAN and, as Jase McCarty of VMware puts it, “with a couple of clicks, it can be enabled or disabled for all items on the vSAN datastore, with no additional steps.”

This gives the enterprise business much greater control in how and when they secure their data. That said, let’s take a look at some additional advantages of using vSAN encryption.

The Advantages of vSAN Encryption

Minimizes Impact on Performance

With encryption there will always be a performance impact. It is just the nature of the beast. But with vSAN encryption, VMware reports:

• Minimal impact to CPU cycles while data is being encrypted.
• A 5-15% CPU penalty and no performance overhead. This overhead is representative of running vSAN with dedupe and compression turned on.

This is great news for those needing to encrypt large amounts of stored data. You can now protect your data and, in large part, maintain the integrity of your performance.

Streamlines Operations

As mentioned earlier, vSAN encryption is easy to configure and entire clusters can be encrypted with just a few clicks. There is zero guess-work with:

• No third-party encryption to install, configure, and maintain.
• No encryption at the hardware layer. Encryption at the hypervisor layer (vSAN encryption) has considerably less overhead than deploying encryption at the hardware layer.

Bring Your Own Key Manager

You can bring your preferred key manager to manage your encryption keys. Since vSAN encryption is KMIP 1.1 compatible, you are free to use a FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption key manager, like our Alliance Key Manager.

How Do I Enable vSAN Encryption?

The last and biggest advantage: vSAN encryption is easy to enable and use. This means that securing your sensitive data with AES encryption is not a time-intensive task. To prove the point, here is a quick guide to getting encryption up and running for your vSAN clusters:

• First, install and configure your key management server, or KMS, (such as our Alliance Key Manager) and add its network address and port information to the vCenter KMS Cluster.
• Then, you will need to set up a domain of trust between vCenter Server, your KMS, and your vSAN host.
• You will do this by exchanging administrative certificates between your KMS and vCenter Server to establish trust.
• Then, vCenter Server will pass the KMS connection data to the vSAN host.
• From there, the vSAN host will only request keys from that trusted KMS.
• The ESXi host generates internal keys to encrypt each disk, generating a new key for each disk. These are known as the data encryption keys, or DEKs.
• The vCenter Server then requests a key from the KMS. This key is used by the ESXi host as the key encryption key, or KEK.
• The ESXi host then uses the KEK to encrypt the DEK and only the encrypted DEK is stored locally on the disk.
• The KEK is safely stored separately from the data and DEK in the KMS.
• Additionally, the KMS also creates a host encryption key, or HEK, for encrypting core dumps. The HEK is managed within the KMS to ensure you can secure the core dump and manage who can access the data.

That’s it! VMware has made encrypting your data in vSAN both simple and secure.

Final Thoughts

Let’s face it, storage area networks are a target-rich environment for malicious actors. Whether it’s:

• Customer data
• Intellectual property
• Financial transactions
• Legal records
• Patient information
• And much, much more….

It all needs to be protected. Network administrators, though, face these challenges:

• They have little control over what gets put into storage.
• Sensitive data, many times, is stored by end users with little thought to encrypting it.
• There is a dizzying array of compliance regulations, internal security standards, and best practices that must be complied with.

vSAN encryption can help. With a few clicks in vSAN entire virtual disks can be encrypted. And with a FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption key manager, like Alliance Key Manager, the keys for your AES-NI encryption will be properly protected and full lifecycle managed.

If you are not protecting your data in vSAN, get started today! It’s not a matter of if your data will be hacked, but when.