Encryption Standards

I have a general question on data encryption.
We need to store encrypted creditcard info in a SQL Server 2000 database.
The encryption method needs to meet the AES standard.
Does anyone know if a value encypted under the AES standard will retain its
data length?
In other words, if I have a 15 character credit card number like...
123456789012345
...will it still be 15 characters in length when it is encrypted like...
shj)k2&bs&_yqE#
..or does the AES standard require something other than a character by
character encryption so I end up with a value that is more than 15 character
s
like..
/Zd7slDfqN2u1JC8rfzdgxxJDMMzfG
I need to know if I have to expand my column width and possibly change code
to accomodate the encryption.
If anyone has any experience with this, I would appreciate their insight.
ThanksDave,
Might want to ask the third-party vendor directly. Might try here:
http://www.activecrypt.com/products.html
HTH
Jerry
"Dave" <Dave@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:883F0E2A-8294-47E9-AE62-A6EE59791618@.microsoft.com...
>I have a general question on data encryption.
> We need to store encrypted creditcard info in a SQL Server 2000 database.
> The encryption method needs to meet the AES standard.
> Does anyone know if a value encypted under the AES standard will retain
> its
> data length?
> In other words, if I have a 15 character credit card number like...
> 123456789012345
> ...will it still be 15 characters in length when it is encrypted like...
> shj)k2&bs&_yqE#
> ..or does the AES standard require something other than a character by
> character encryption so I end up with a value that is more than 15
> characters
> like..
> /Zd7slDfqN2u1JC8rfzdgxxJDMMzfG
> I need to know if I have to expand my column width and possibly change
> code
> to accomodate the encryption.
> If anyone has any experience with this, I would appreciate their insight.
> Thanks|||You'll need to change your VARCHAR column to BINARY or VARBINARY unless
you are going to implement some character set encoding as well as
encryption.
The AES block size is 128 bits so you'll need at least one extra byte.
Depending on the cipher mode you will also need an additional 128 bit
initialization vector.
Jerry has it right though. Ask the vendor or whoever will implement the
encryption.
David Portas
SQL Server MVP
--|||Thanks guys.
Yes I am experimenting with "Ivy Encryption" and whatever value it encrypts
is expanded by a factor of 2.75.
I was just wondering if I should expect this from all AES encryption
schemes.
I don''t think it would meet the standard if it each individual character
were encrypted to a single character. If anyone could confirm I would be
grateful.