Are there inherent or 3rd-party tools for encrypting data in Oracle?

Hello, all!

Please forgive my extensive cross-posting, but I wasn't certain what forum to post my question. This is my first visit to these groups, but I hope to become a "regular" (and better determine where to place my posts in the future ;-).

My background in databases has been largely limited to Microsoft SQL Server, but I have started a new job with a company that uses Oracle 8i on Red Hat Linux 6.2. As such, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about Oracle using my knowledge of SQL Server as sort of a starting point. ;-)

I have been tasked to investigate the feasibility of encrypting data in Oracle. Are there any tools (off-the-shelf or internal to Oracle) that might help to accomplish this? We use JDBC as our data access mechanism, so we would prefer to NOT have to change the application, but to arrange for the data to be encrypted between the Client Library (JDBC in our application) and the Oracle server (we want the data across the wire to be encrypted AND the data on the disk to be encrypted).

Also, I would appreciate any thoughts as to the pros/cons of this approach. My natural inclination is to NOT encrypt the data in the database, but rather to rely on the security safeguards that are in place with the operating system and the database server. It seems to me that it would be difficult to perform OLAP tasks or determine data patterns on data that's encrypted (even partially), not to mention the performance ramifications of said. However, our "hands may be tied", as this is a client imperative. But, I'm hopeful that with some compelling evidence (one way or another), they might change their stance accordingly.

Thank you in advance for your time! :-)

John Peterson Received on Thu Feb 22 2001 - 22:09:06 CST