Free SQL Help for Devs, DBAs, and the Curious

In today's digital age, data security is of utmost importance. Encrypting data-at-rest is a crucial security practice that involves encoding data when it's stored on disk, which is especially important for databases like MySQL. In MySQL, data-at-rest encryption can be achieved using the Keyring plugin. This blog post will guide you through setting up data-at-rest encryption in MySQL using the Keyring plugin with a focus on technologies like SQL Server 2022, Azure SQL, Microsoft Fabric, Delta Lake, OpenAI + SQL, and Databricks.

MySQL's Keyring plugin provides simple and effective data-at-rest encryption by storing encryption keys securely and separately from the data. The Keyring plugin encrypts the InnoDB tablespace, effectively securing all your data. To enable this plugin, you first need to load it using the INSTALL PLUGIN statement, followed by a server restart. If you're using Azure SQL, make sure that the Azure Key Vault is set up correctly to store the keys.

INSTALL PLUGIN keyring_file SONAME 'keyring_file.so';
-- After this, you should restart the server.

After enabling the plugin, you can create an encrypted table by specifying the ENCRYPTION='Y' option in the CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement. Here is an example:

CREATE TABLE t1 (c1 INT) ENCRYPTION='Y';

SQL Server 2022 also provides support for data-at-rest encryption with Always Encrypted with secure enclaves. This feature allows client applications to run T-SQL queries on encrypted data, with the SQL Server doing the decryption in a secure enclave inside the server. This ensures that sensitive data never appears in plaintext in the DBMS system. Here is how to set up Always Encrypted with secure enclaves:

-- Enable Always Encrypted with secure enclaves
ALTER DATABASE Database1
SET ENCRYPTION FOR ALL WITH (ENCRYPTION_TYPE = RANDOMIZED, ALGORITHM = 'AEAD_AES_256_CBC_HMAC_SHA_256', COLUMN_ENCRYPTION_KEY = MyCEK, ENCLAVE_TYPE = HGS, ENCLAVE_COMPUTATIONAL = ON);

When it comes to data lakes, Delta Lake allows for encryption at rest of the Parquet files that store the data. This is achieved using the Apache Hadoop Key Provider API, which allows keys to be stored in a variety of backends. Additionally, OpenAI and SQL can be used together to perform AI operations on encrypted data, providing another layer of security.

Lastly, Databricks provides a unified analytics platform that allows you to manage and secure your data effectively. It supports Azure Key Vault-backed secret scopes, which you can use to store keys for data-at-rest encryption.

In conclusion, data-at-rest encryption is a crucial aspect of data security. MySQL's Keyring plugin, SQL Server 2022's Always Encrypted with secure enclaves, Delta Lake's encryption capabilities, and Databricks' support for Azure Key Vault make it easier than ever to secure your data. By leveraging these technologies, you can ensure that your data remains secure, even when at rest.