Re: if I encrypt key data why do I want or need SSL?

how do you protect against data manipulation on the wire ?? i assume your app checks every single piece of data with MAC or a digital signature?



---------------------------------------
Dominick Baier - DevelopMentor
http://www.leastprivilege.com

Just curious why people freak out about not having SSL and/or having a
SQL Server port 1433 open.

If I do the following why do I care about SSL or port 1433?

1. 40 character passwords for all SQL accounts
2. any sensitive data written to the SQL server is encrypted (via one
of
numerous encryption methods provided in .NET 2.0) in the database
3. any sensitive data sent over http is encrypted (via one of
numerous
encryption methods provided in .NET 2.0)
4. the encryption key itself is encrypted and stored in a location
that
would be hard to find even if someone had admin rights to the server
and the
only DLL that can deal with the key is a signed assembly with a strong
name
key file.
5. all cookie information that is sensitive is encrypted
6. all "user accounts" (data mining folks) only access data feeds
(databases) that do not contain sensitive data
I use SSL to communicate with external sources that require it, but
they pay for an maintain their certificates. I do provide split
tunnel VPN solutions for the more paranoid clients, but it seems to me
that we've sorta gone overboard on security (applied too many layers).
I'm all for intelligent security, but not for some of the wacky
overkill blanket solutions I see out there -- solutions that still
have vulnerability from user accounts. The folks that are hacking
into CC data and the like are doing so because company X had obvious
open holes (easy to guess user account, using default passwords, etc.
etc.).

What it seems the end result is, companies that are paranoid, seeking
blanket solutions, but still vulnerable to simple password/userID
hacking.

In the systems I design and build, even if a userID/passsword we're
hacked (extremely unlikely with 40 character passwords on all accounts
that are meaningful) they would still be confronted with encrypted
data which will be completely useless to them. Even if they guessed
the sa account password and deleted the database that would be a
hassle (aka gotta get an offsite backup) but still NO sensitive data
was compromised.

Rob



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