Need help on how to generate an Encryption key for a database

HCL Domino Domino Forum
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I posted this on the 8 forum as well. We have this DB on both 7 and 8 servers.-------

We’re in a big jam with one of our HR databases. It contains sensitive employee data so some of its fields were encrypted when it was originally designed. The few people who require access to the encrypted fields must be given an encryption key to access the encrypted fields.

The problem is that no one who currently works here knows how to generate the encryption key. The person who designed the database and handled this task left the organization five years ago. (so much for good documentation) The other person who entered the data for the past eight years recently retired and we need to give her replacement access to the DB’s encrypted fields. So this is the first time we’ve run into this issue.

Two of our IT staff have encryption keys. Below is the text from email that gave them access. It appears from the text that it is programmed into the database but we can’t find anything in the design to do this.

…“Encryption key “FISkey” is attached. You may insert this key into your ID file by using the Actions menu “Accept Encryption Key…” option.”

I’d appreciate any advice.

Thanks in advance.

Greg

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Subject: How to transmit document encryption keys…

Have one of your admins who currently has that encryption key launch the User Security Dialog, open the “Notes Data” section and click on “Documents”. They will see a list of all of the document encryption keys in their ID files. Select the correct encryption key and click on the “Mail Secret Key” button. When the mail recipient opens that message, they’ll be able to select a pick off the Action menu called something along the lines of “Accept Encryption Key”.

The admins could also use the “Other Actions” button and choose the “Export Secret Key” option, the resulting file could be transmitted out of band to the recipient, and then the recipient could open the User Security Dialog, and use the “Import Secret Key” option off that same button to import the encryption key.

Hope that helps,

dave

PS - I verified the dialogs under 8.0.1 after reading your post in the ND8 forum; the specific strings might be slightly different in 7.0.3, but the logic will still be the same.

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Subject: That was it

Thanks. That really helped us out.

Greg