RE: How to secure a MySQL database from people with physical acce ss

[David Brodbeck]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mos [mailto:mos99@stripped]

> I could encrypt certain table fields, but this will make 
> writing the front 
> end a pain because all SQL statements will now need to be 
> changed any time 
> a new column is encrypted.

It also won't help you any, because the software will have to contain
everything needed to do the decryption.  Unless you can somehow prevent a
hypothetical attacker from getting this software, your encryption is only
going to keep a casual attacker out.  All he has to do is decompile the
software enough to figure out your encryption routine.

Generally there's very little you can do to protect data from someone with
physical access to the machine -- unless you can keep it in encrypted form,
and only decrypt it elsewhere, so that the decryption key never passes
through the vulnerable machine.