Re: Encryption/Decryption Question

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 10:00 AM, tedd <tedd@sperling.com> wrote: > At 8:09 PM -0400 8/11/10, Bastien Koert wrote: >> >> From my experience, I'd have to say that it would be a real tough go >> to crack that. If there was a weak point in the scheme is that your >> end result pattern ( the ssn ) is defined with a pair of constants, >> the hyphens. In our scheme we remove the dashes and just provide a >> mask for display. We also keep a unique key with each ssn, the record >> number for extra security. > > The SS numbers can be stored in any format (with/without hyphens, reversed, > transposed, predetermined mixing, whatever). > > Of course, there can be another field where a unique key is kept, but I'm > not sure how that might improve security. Just adds another layer to it. > >> Where to keep it is tougher, OWASP suggests that the keys be stored on >> another non web facing server, with a locked down filesystem. That >> would be best if you have the hardware available. > > So that I understand, you are talking about two web sites where one > (domain1.com) would contain/run the scripts and the other (domain2.com) > contained the keys. > > It would work like so: > > When the script launches in domain1.com, the script would ask (after > authorization) domain2.com for the keys, which are kept in a locked > directory. After which the Encryption/Decryption scheme would work. > > Is that it? correct > >> One other option here is to load the keys into ram on server start up and >> never have >> them physically on the machine. > > I'm not sure as to how to make that work. But I assume that it requires a > dedicated server, right? Yes, you would need a non web facing machine > > Cheers, > > tedd > > -- > ------- > http://sperling.com/ > -- Bastien Cat, the other other white meat