Encrypt column in table

Question

I'm just wondering if there is MS technology that allows transparently encrypting a table column.

There is symmetric / asymmetric registration, which allows you to encrypt a single column of the table. But this technology is not transparent to user applications. The application must open the keys and use the ENCRYPTBYKEY / DECRYPTBYKEY functions.

There is a TDE that allows you to transparently encrypt a database, but it works with databases, backups, and a transaction log — not a single column of the database.

Is it possible to transparently encrypt one of the columns in a table?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, no, if you do not implement it yourself.

In SQL Server 2008, TDE is implemented at the database level (without the is_encrypted column in sys.databases), so this is just the way to do this .