Scribd
Upload
21 views4 pages

Conversation

Uploaded by

thanhdq1
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
21 views4 pages

Conversation

Uploaded by

thanhdq1
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Encrypting Database Member Names - 1377183394

USER
you are an expert in database design and relation database solution and oracle db. You need to solution to encrypt
member name in member table. but also need to support partial searching. For example if member name is "Dinh
Thanh" then it should be encrypted in the database, but also support searching if user just input part of name like "inh"
or full name "Dinh Thanh"

BOT
Implementing encryption for member names in the database while supporting partial searches presents a challenging
balance between data security and usability. Standard encryption transforms data into a format that is unreadable and
not directly searchable, which conflicts with the need for partial matching. However, with careful design, we can achieve
both objectives to a reasonable extent.

**Challenges with Encrypting Searchable Data:**

1. **Standard Encryption Limitations:**


- **Non-Searchable Ciphertexts:** Conventional encryption algorithms like AES produce ciphertexts that are
indistinguishable from random data. As a result, any meaningful partial matching or searching becomes infeasible
because the encrypted data lacks any structure or patterns related to the original plaintext.
- **Deterministic vs. Non-Deterministic Encryption:** While deterministic encryption (where the same plaintext always
results in the same ciphertext) allows for equality searches (exact matches), it doesn't support partial or range searches
and introduces security risks such as enabling frequency analysis attacks.

2. **Security vs. Functionality Trade-off:**


- **Revealing Patterns:** Any method that allows partial searching over encrypted data may inadvertently expose
patterns or information about the plaintext, potentially compromising data confidentiality.
- **Complex Encryption Schemes:** Advanced cryptographic methods like **Searchable Encryption** or
**Homomorphic Encryption** can support searching over encrypted data but come with significant performance
overheads and complexity, and are not natively supported in Oracle Database.

**Proposed Solution:**

Given the limitations, a practical approach within Oracle Database involves:

1. **Encrypting the Member Names:**


- Use a strong encryption algorithm (e.g., AES-256) to encrypt the `member_name` column in the `member` table.
This ensures that the actual names are securely stored and protected at rest.

2. **Creating a Searchable Encrypted Index:**


- **Generate Search Tokens:**
- For each member name, generate **n-grams** (substrings of length *n*, typically *n* = 3 for trigrams) of the name.
- Example for "Dinh Thanh":
- Trigrams: `"Din"`, `"inh"`, `"nh "`, `"h T"`, `" Th"`, `"Tha"`, `"han"`, `"anh"`
- **Securely Hash Tokens:**
- Use a keyed **Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC)** with a secret key to hash each n-gram. This
enhances security over standard hashing by incorporating a secret key.
- Example: `HMAC_SHA256(secret_key, "Din")`, `HMAC_SHA256(secret_key, "inh")`, etc.
- **Build the Search Index Table:**
- Create a separate table (e.g., `member_search_index`) with columns:
- `member_id` (foreign key to `member` table)
- `ngram_hash` (the HMAC hash of the n-gram)
- Store the hashed n-grams along with the associated `member_id`.
- This index allows for mapping from search tokens to encrypted member records without revealing the actual n-
grams.

3. **Implementing the Search Functionality:**


- When a user searches for a partial name (e.g., `"inh"`):
- **Generate Search Tokens:**
- Extract n-grams from the input search string. For `"inh"`, the trigrams would be `"inh"` (if the input is shorter than
*n*, use the entire input).
- **Hash the Search Tokens:**
- Compute the HMAC hashes of these n-grams using the same secret key.
- **Query the Search Index:**
- Search the `member_search_index` table for matching `ngram_hash` values.
- **Retrieve Encrypted Member Records:**
- Use the `member_id`s from the index to fetch the corresponding encrypted member records from the `member`
table.
- **Decrypt and Display Results:**
- Decrypt the `member_name` field in the application layer (not within the database) before displaying the results to
the user.

**Security Considerations:**

- **Secret Key Management:**


- The HMAC secret key must be securely stored and managed. It should not be accessible to unauthorized users and
should be rotated periodically.
- **Preventing Dictionary Attacks:**
- Since the space of possible n-grams is limited, an attacker could attempt to precompute hashes of all possible n-
grams (a dictionary attack). To mitigate this:
- Use a sufficiently large secret key in the HMAC.
- Consider incorporating additional salting mechanisms.
- Monitor for unusual query patterns that may indicate an attack.
- **Compliance and Data Protection:**
- Ensure that the implementation complies with relevant data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA). Consult with
a security expert or compliance officer as needed.

**Implementation Steps in Oracle Database:**

1. **Create the Encrypted Member Table:**

```sql
-- Create the table with encrypted member names
CREATE TABLE member (
member_id NUMBER PRIMARY KEY,
member_name_encrypted RAW(256) -- Store encrypted data in RAW format
);
```

2. **Implement Encryption Procedures:**

- Use Oracle's **DBMS_CRYPTO** package for encryption and decryption.


- Example stored procedure for inserting a new member:

```sql
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE insert_member(p_member_id NUMBER, p_member_name VARCHAR2) AS
l_encrypted_name RAW(256);
BEGIN
l_encrypted_name := DBMS_CRYPTO.ENCRYPT(
src => UTL_I18N.STRING_TO_RAW(p_member_name, 'AL32UTF8'),
typ => DBMS_CRYPTO.ENCRYPT_AES256 + DBMS_CRYPTO.CHAIN_CBC + DBMS_CRYPTO.PAD_PKCS5,
key => your_encryption_key -- Replace with your secure key
);

INSERT INTO member (member_id, member_name_encrypted) VALUES (p_member_id, l_encrypted_name);


END;
```

3. **Create the Search Index Table:**

```sql
-- Create the search index table
CREATE TABLE member_search_index (
member_id NUMBER,
ngram_hash RAW(32), -- Assuming HMAC_SHA256 produces a 256-bit hash
FOREIGN KEY (member_id) REFERENCES member(member_id)
);
```
4. **Populate the Search Index:**

- Write a procedure to generate n-grams, compute HMAC hashes, and populate the `member_search_index` table.
- Example:

```sql
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE populate_search_index(p_member_id NUMBER, p_member_name
VARCHAR2) AS
l_ngrams SYS.ODCIVARCHAR2LIST := SYS.ODCIVARCHAR2LIST();
l_ngram VARCHAR2(100);
l_hash RAW(32);
l_secret_key RAW(32) := your_hmac_key; -- Replace with your secure key
BEGIN
-- Generate n-grams
FOR i IN 1 .. LENGTH(p_member_name) - 2 LOOP
l_ngram := SUBSTR(p_member_name, i, 3);
l_ngrams.EXTEND;
l_ngrams(l_ngrams.COUNT) := l_ngram;
END LOOP;

-- Insert hashed n-grams into the search index


FOR i IN 1 .. l_ngrams.COUNT LOOP
l_hash := DBMS_CRYPTO.HMAC(
src => UTL_I18N.STRING_TO_RAW(l_ngrams(i), 'AL32UTF8'),
typ => DBMS_CRYPTO.HASH_SH256,
key => l_secret_key
);

INSERT INTO member_search_index (member_id, ngram_hash) VALUES (p_member_id, l_hash);


END LOOP;
END;
```

5. **Search Procedure:**

- Implement a procedure to handle search queries:

```sql
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE search_members(p_search_input VARCHAR2) AS
l_ngrams SYS.ODCIVARCHAR2LIST := SYS.ODCIVARCHAR2LIST();
l_hashes SYS.ODCIRAWLIST := SYS.ODCIRAWLIST();
l_secret_key RAW(32) := your_hmac_key; -- Same key used earlier
BEGIN
-- Generate n-grams from search input
FOR i IN 1 .. LENGTH(p_search_input) - 2 LOOP
l_ngrams.EXTEND;
l_ngrams(l_ngrams.COUNT) := SUBSTR(p_search_input, i, 3);
END LOOP;

-- Compute hashes of the search n-grams


FOR i IN 1 .. l_ngrams.COUNT LOOP
l_hashes.EXTEND;
l_hashes(l_hashes.COUNT) := DBMS_CRYPTO.HMAC(
src => UTL_I18N.STRING_TO_RAW(l_ngrams(i), 'AL32UTF8'),
typ => DBMS_CRYPTO.HASH_SH256,
key => l_secret_key
);
END LOOP;

-- Query the search index for matching members


SELECT DISTINCT m.member_id, m.member_name_encrypted
INTO -- variables to hold the results
FROM member_search_index idx
JOIN member m ON m.member_id = idx.member_id
WHERE idx.ngram_hash IN (SELECT COLUMN_VALUE FROM TABLE(l_hashes));

-- Decrypt and display member names in the application layer


END;
```

6. **Application Layer Decryption:**

- The encrypted member names retrieved need to be decrypted in the application layer using the corresponding
decryption key and algorithm.
- Ensure that decryption keys are securely managed and not exposed to unauthorized parts of the application.

**Alternative Approaches:**

- **Adjust N-gram Length:**


- Increasing the length of n-grams (e.g., using 4-grams) reduces the risk of dictionary attacks but may affect search
effectiveness for shorter inputs.
- **Use Tokenization:**
- Break down names into tokens (e.g., words) instead of n-grams. This approach is more secure but may limit partial
matching capabilities.
- **Leverage Oracle Text with Encryption:**
- Oracle Text provides powerful text search capabilities. However, it doesn't natively support searching over encrypted
data. You would need to manage encryption and decryption in conjunction with Oracle Text features carefully.

**Important Considerations:**

- **Performance Implications:**
- The proposed solution may have performance overhead due to the additional processing of n-grams, hashing, and
the joins involved during searches.
- Indexing strategies and hardware resources should be optimized to mitigate performance issues.

- **Security Auditing and Monitoring:**


- Implement auditing to monitor access to sensitive data and the search index.
- Regularly review logs for any suspicious activities.

- **Regular Reviews and Updates:**


- Periodically review the security measures in place to ensure they comply with the latest standards and address new
threats.
- Update encryption keys and hashing mechanisms as needed.

**Conclusion:**

While it's challenging to support partial searches over encrypted data without introducing some security risks, the
proposed solution offers a balanced approach that leverages strong encryption and secure indexing to meet both
requirements. It is crucial to implement robust security practices, including key management and monitoring, to mitigate
potential vulnerabilities.

By carefully managing the trade-offs and ensuring compliance with security best practices, you can provide a secure
and functional system that protects member names while still offering the necessary search capabilities.

You might also like