Re: [Proposal] Table-level Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and Key Management Service (KMS)

On 06/11/2018 05:22 AM, Masahiko Sawada wrote:
> As per discussion at PGCon unconference, I think that firstly we need
> to discuss what threats we want to defend database data against.

Exactly. While certainly there is demand for encryption for the sake of
"checking a box", different designs will defend against different
threats, and we should be clear on which ones we are trying to protect
against for any particular design.

> Also, if I understand correctly, at unconference session there also
> were two suggestions about the design other than the suggestion by
> Alexander: implementing TDE at column level using POLICY, and
> implementing TDE at table-space level. The former was suggested by Joe
> but I'm not sure the detail of that suggestion. I'd love to hear the
> deal of that suggestion.

The idea has not been extensively fleshed out yet, but the thought was
that we create column level POLICY, which would transparently apply some
kind of transform on input and/or output. The transforms would
presumably be expressions, which in turn could use functions (extension
or builtin) to do their work. That would allow encryption/decryption,
DLP (data loss prevention) schemes (masking, redacting), etc. to be
applied based on the policies.

This, in and of itself, would not address key management. There is
probably a separate need for some kind of built in key management --
perhaps a flexible way to integrate with external systems such as Vault
for example, or maybe something self contained, or perhaps both. Or
maybe key management is really tied into the separately discussed effort
to create SQL VARIABLEs somehow.

In any case certainly a lot of room for discussion.

Joe

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