[Cryptography] New NIST standard for Format Preserving Encryption

[Perry E. Metzger]

Quoting:

  Format-preserving encryption (FPE) is designed for data that is not
  necessarily binary. In particular, given any finite set of symbols,
  like the decimal numerals, a method for FPE transforms data that is
  formatted as a sequence of the symbols in such a way that the
  encrypted form of the data has the same format, including the length,
  as the original data. Thus, an FPE encrypted SSN would be a sequence
  of nine decimal digits.

  FPE facilitates the targeting of encryption
  to sensitive information, as well as the retrofitting of encryption
  technology to legacy applications, where a conventional encryption
  mode might not be feasible. For example, database applications may
  not support changes to the length or format of data fields. FPE has
  emerged as a useful cryptographic tool, whose applications include
  financial-information security, data sanitization , and the
  transparent encryption of fields in legacy databases. 

http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-38G.pdf

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Perry E. Metzger		perry at piermont.com