Good reference. But even Tom Kyte's followup does not shedding any light on how to keep the wallet on a diff. server. Parallelly i found the the following might be of help , of using LDAP. http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/network.102/b14268/asowalet.htm#BABFJICD Govindan On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:31:14 +0100, "Alberto Dell'Era" <alberto.dellera@xxxxxxxxx> said: > > Hi Has anyone tried keeping the wallet file out of the box once the > > database is started. > > I'm not an expert about TDE, but one week ago I investigated it and > found this posting by Arup Nanda very informative: > > http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/ask/f?p=4950:8:::::F4950_P8_DISPLAYID:44742967463133#45591838845270 > > basically, what I got is that keeping the wallet on the same box > is perfectly safe, since a wallet without its password is perfectly > useless to the attacker. > > Also, I would expect (stress on "expect", I'm making an educated guess) > that the encryption algorithm used for the wallet is much stronger than > the one > used for the columns. Because, the columns have to be en/decrypted > on line, so reasonably fast, while the wallet has to be decrypted only > when the instance starts; a few seconds used to decrypt the wallet > is perfectly acceptable, but definitely not acceptable for the columns. > > If my guess is correct, an attacker would be better off ignoring the > stolen wallet altogether, and use his cryptanalysis skills directly > on the datafiles - less resistance there. > > -- > Alberto Dell'Era > "Per aspera ad astra" -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l