Secure Storage for Physically Exposed Web- and Application Servers

Web and application servers nowadays often provide authorized users access to large amounts of sensitive data and services. These data and services need to be protected against unauthorized access. Thus, a lot of effort has been put into securing remote data access and network communication. However, attackers may get direct access to the data stored on the physical media, e.g., though theft or simply because of careless handling of disposed storage and backup media. In this paper, we describe a mechanism based on encrypted storage of documents and services on a server that enables transparent access to the data and services on the server while protecting the persistent data through encryption. In our approach, this data cannot be decrypted outside the context of a client connection and is thus worthless for anyone getting hold of the physical media.