United States Patent 7266699 was issued to AppSecInc. From the patent

"The invention provides a transparent encryption infrastructure which allows the user to point-and-click on columns and tables to encrypt data. The creation of triggers and views are also easily implemented, to encrypt and decrypt data, to manage the encryption keys and to grant and revoke access to a column. Public and private key pairs are hashed and encrypted with a valid password. The process or encryption starts by creating a randomly generated symmetrical key, encrypting the symmetrical key with the private key for each user authorized to decrypt the data, and storing the encrypted symmetrical key, along with the user's name and the column name, in the database."

from Darkreading

"The newly patented Application Security, Inc. invention gives database administrators (DBA’s) the ability apply modern cryptography to the database systems they administer. It provides a transparent encryption infrastructure, which – via a graphical user interface – allows DBAs to select the columns within the database they’d like to encrypt and choose the algorithm they’d like to apply. DBAs can select encryption strength, leveraging a graphical console that allows the creation of working code with simple point-and-click functionality. Database triggers and views are automatically created and implemented with this approach to efficiently encrypt and decrypt data with minimal impact on database performance; to securely manage multiple encryption keys; and to grant and revoke cleartext access to a data column."

Article Link: http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=137367&WT.svl=wire_1
Patent Link: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7266699.html