Encrypting sensitive data-at-rest (i.e. in a database) is a good idea, but how does one manage the encryption keys, and rotate keys or start using a new algorithm down the road without orphaning or migrating the old data? Use KeyCzar
Cryptography is easy to get wrong. Developers can choose improper
cipher modes, use obsolete algorithms, compose primitives in an unsafe
manner, or fail to anticipate the need for key rotation. Keyczar
abstracts some of these details by choosing safe defaults,
automatically tagging outputs with key version information, and
providing a simple programming interface.Keyczar is designed to be open, extensible, and cross-platform
compatible. It is not intended to replace existing cryptographic
libraries like OpenSSL, PyCrypto, or the Java JCE, and in fact is
built on these libraries.
Or learn from what Google did with KeyCzar, and implement the same ideas (key rotation and key version info) using a more modern encryption library, like libsodium.