Storing Credit Cards and Other Sensitive Information

High profile break ins as of late all have one thing in common: the database was the target. Databases are unprotected when compared to the rest of the operating system, and once the host operating system is compromised, the thief can do whatever he wants to the database service. Usually this is stealing a snapshot of interesting tables to decrypt later at one's leisure.

This talk covers securing your database against even a root OS user who acts hastily, as well as some PCI compliance tricks employed to prevent credit cards and other decryptable information from getting stolen.