Yes, you have every right to be paranoid. Preferably, you will never store unencrypted sensitive data in RAM, but this is isn't always possible. So you aim for keeping it around for a short a time as you can. The swap space is a big problem, too. If it hits swap, it should be assumed that you will never get rid of it.

Under *nix, you wouldn't have a problem with unpriviledged users getting at the RAM. You still have to trust the superuser (which you pretty much have to in any case). A Win32 system is less certain, since there are a lot of Windows admins that are sloppy with permissions, but if properly set, it should be as good as *nix in this regard.

Preferably, you wouldn't store credit card information in the database at all, even encrypted. If you do, it should be for a limited period of time. However, I imagine this would require a lot of changes to your application which are beyond your reach ATM. Encrypting everything was probably the right thing to do, IMHO.

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send money to your kernel via the boot loader.. This and more wisdom available from Markov Hardburn.

In reply to Re: Is data in RAM insecure, or am I just paranoid? by hardburn
in thread Is data in RAM insecure, or am I just paranoid? by theAcolyte

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