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Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
Security in HCL Informix®
The Informix® Security Guide documents methods for keeping your data secure by preventing unauthorized viewing and altering of data or database objects, including how to use the secure-auditing facility of the database server.
Securing data
Column-level encryption
You can use column-level encryption to store sensitive data in an encrypted format. After encrypting sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, only users who can provide a secret password can decrypt the data.
Encrypting column data
You can store sensitive data in encrypted format.

Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
- Security in HCL Informix®
  The Informix® Security Guide documents methods for keeping your data secure by preventing unauthorized viewing and altering of data or database objects, including how to use the secure-auditing facility of the database server.
  - Securing data
    - HCL Informix® directory security
      utilities and product directories are secure by default.
    - Network data encryption
      Use network encryption to encrypt data transmitted between server and client, and between server and other server.
    - Column-level encryption
      You can use column-level encryption to store sensitive data in an encrypted format. After encrypting sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, only users who can provide a secret password can decrypt the data.
      - Encrypting column data
        You can store sensitive data in encrypted format.
        Example showing how to determine the size of an encrypted column
        The size of the column must be large enough to store the encrypted data.
        Example showing how to encrypt a column
        You can use the SET ENCRYPTION PASSWORD statement to restrict access to data in a column.
        Example showing how to query encrypted data
        You can query encrypted data with the DECRYPT function or the SET ENCRYPTION PASSWORD statement.
    - Connection security
      You can administer the security of the connections to the database server by using authentication and authorization processes.
    - Discretionary access control
      Discretionary access control verifies whether the user who is attempting to perform an operation has been granted the required privileges to perform that operation.
    - Label-Based Access Control
      You can use label-based access control (LBAC), an implementation of multi-level security (MLS), to control who has read access and who has write access to individual rows and columns of data.
  - Auditing data security

Encrypting column data

You can store sensitive data in encrypted format.

About this task

Before you set the encryption password and encrypt data, you must be sure the encrypted data can fit in the column.

To encrypt a column:

Procedure

Calculate the size of the encrypted column. If necessary, modify the column.
For examples of two methods for calculating the size of an encrypted column, see Example showing how to determine the size of an encrypted column.
Insert information about the encryption password into your code. Use the SET ENCRYPTION PASSWORD statement to specify either a password or a password and a hint. Use the ENCRYPT_AES() or the ENCRYPT_TDES() function to define encrypted data.
For an example of how to insert a password into your code and use the ENCRYPT function, see Example showing how to encrypt a column.

Results

Use the DECRYPT_BINARY(), and DECRYPT_CHAR() functions to query encrypted data. For an example of querying encrypted data, see Example showing how to query encrypted data.

See the Informix® Guide to SQL: Syntax for more information about:

The SET ENCRYPTION PASSWORD statement and the syntax to use to specify the password and the hint
The ENCRYPT and DECRYPT functions