Database encrytpion/decryption using AES and DES

Abstract

The application of database on storing data of computer applications is nowadays very common. Whether the system is a simple or a complex one, the security of the data should be remain important if the systems do deal with private and confidential data. Security countermeasures need to be taken in both whether before and after the intrusion of the database system. This project focusing on postintrusion domain, which the attacker have been successfully access the database file and the data became exposed to the attacker. Counter measuring this attack, it is common that the system admin encrypts some columns, that containing private and confidential data, of the database. Related to that domain, this project goal is to investigate the computational time performance of two cryptography algorithms known as AES and DES, on encrypting and decrypting the critical columns of the databases. In this project, AES and DES algorithms are implemented in a prototype database-equipped application. The prototype is developed using Microsoft VB.NET 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server. The DES uses 64-bit long plaintext and 56-bit encryption key (8 bits of parity) and produce output of 64-bit block. The AES in the other part uses three different key length such as 128, 198 and 256 bits. From the comparison of results, it is found that the computational time of AES(128-bit) is faster than the other schemes, followed by the DES(58-bit), AES(198-bit) and AES(265-bit), subsequently.