Offline Geodatabase Encryption

Question

What's the best ways to keep an offline geodatabase file secure?  There doesn't appear to be any way to encrypt the database directly, which leads me down the path of encrypting the entire device.  Does anybody have any tips on what techniques work best?

Anonymous User · Answer

This was answered clearly at DevSummit 2016 -- there are no plans to support encryption inside of the ArcGIS Runtime.

Anonymous User · Answer

Thanks for the info Mike!  I'll keep poking around the device/hard-disk encryption route.

MichaelBranscomb · Answer

Hi,

We currently don't have a mechanism to secure mobile geodatabases. We could consider one of the sqlite encryption options available, but they can incur a significant impact on performance (one popular option states "as little as 5-15% overhead"). Depending on what risks you trying to secure against, full device encryption might be a viable route and it does seem to be increasingly popular these days. However, I think device/hard-disk encryption inevitably still has an overhead; how much that actually is in practice and whether it is acceptable to your users in the field would require some testing.

If I find any more information, I'll let you know.

Cheers

Mike