Comparison Matrix

The following matrix compares two approaches to securing sensitive data within AWS RDS/Aurora environments. It evaluates effectiveness against insider threats, credential compromise, and operational considerations.

Ubiq Security = Ubiq’s identity-driven encryption, tokenization, and masking platform (with native application/ETL integration via SDKs or UDFs assumed).
AWS RDS/Aurora Native Controls = Built-in features such as KMS encryption at rest, Transparent Data Encryption (engine dependent), TLS, engine GRANTs/RLS/masking, IAM DB Auth, and Database Activity Streams.

Summary Matrix

Security Dimension	Ubiq Security	Amazon RDS (KMS & TDE)	Amazon Aurora (MySQL/PostgreSQL)
Insider Threat Protection	High – Field- or record-level encryption bound to identity; DBAs and cloud admins cannot view plaintext without IAM-governed approval.	Low – Encryption at rest only; privileged DB users or AWS admins see plaintext during operation.	Medium – Same as RDS, but adds Activity Streams for audit visibility; still no cryptographic barrier against privileged reads.
Defense Against Stolen Credentials	High – Requires valid Ubiq + enterprise IAM credentials; database or cloud tokens alone can’t decrypt protected fields.	Low – Any valid DB or IAM credential within scope can read plaintext; no second identity-aware control.	Medium – IAM Database Authentication reduces credential persistence, but once authenticated, queries return plaintext.
Access Control Granularity	High – Per-field, per-identity encryption/tokenization; least-privilege enforced through IAM.	Medium – Table/row/column GRANTs, masking, or RLS (engine dependent); software enforcement only.	Medium-High – Aurora PostgreSQL supports row-level security and column masks; still engine-level logical controls, not cryptographic.
Runtime Enforcement	High – External policy check for every decrypt; data remains encrypted until identity/context are verified.	Partial – Permissions checked at query execution; data decrypted automatically for authorized sessions.	Partial – Same as RDS; no continuous context check beyond the initial query authorization.
Integration Effort	Medium – Lightweight SDK/UDF calls for selected fields; minimal code changes.	Low – Configuration only (KMS/TDE/TLS, roles, GRANTs).	Low – Same as RDS; some features like IAM DB Auth require minor configuration.
Performance Impact	Low – Microseconds–milliseconds per protected value; affects sensitive fields only.	Low – Transparent storage-level encryption with negligible overhead.	Low – Comparable to RDS; Activity Streams add minor logging cost.
Data Coverage	High – Structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data; protection travels with data beyond the database.	Medium – Protects data in the database, backups, and snapshots; ends when exported.	Medium-High – Extends to replicas and streams; still ends once data leaves Aurora.
Key Management	High – Externalized, FIPS-validated or customer HSM; identity-gated key release and fine-grained rotation.	Medium – AWS KMS CMK per DB/cluster; automatic decryption for authorized sessions.	Medium-High – Aurora integrates tightly with KMS; adds per-cluster data-key hierarchy, but not identity-aware.
IAM Compatibility	High – Direct IAM/CIAM integration; policies decide who can decrypt what at runtime.	Partial – IAM for infrastructure; DB logins manage data access.	Medium – Adds IAM Database Authentication and Activity Streams; IAM not used for row/field decryption.

Detailed Matrix

Security Dimension	Ubiq Security Platform (Identity-Driven Data Protection)	Amazon RDS (KMS & TDE)	Amazon Aurora (MySQL/PostgreSQL)
Protection Against Internal Threats (rogue DB admins or cloud engineers)	High: Sensitive data remains encrypted at the field or column level unless an authorized identity is validated through IAM and Ubiq. Even DBAs or AWS cloud administrators cannot view plaintext without explicit policy approval. Encryption keys and cryptographic operations reside outside the database, so a privileged insider dumping tables, exporting snapshots, or reading from EBS volumes only sees ciphertext. This hard cryptographic barrier prevents “inside jobs” because encryption isn’t automatically lifted inside the database—it’s enforced externally and per identity.	Low: RDS relies on in-database roles and AWS KMS or engine-level TDE for storage encryption. Once a session is authorized, the database returns plaintext to any privileged user or application account. A DBA or AWS admin with access to the instance or a snapshot can read decrypted data directly. Encryption at rest is effective against physical theft, not misuse of legitimate privileges. Activity Streams are not available for all RDS engines and are audit-only—they detect, not prevent.	Medium: Aurora inherits the same trust model but adds Database Activity Streams, which provide real-time, immutable audit trails of all queries and administrative actions. While this improves visibility, it does not prevent a privileged insider from accessing plaintext data. Aurora still decrypts for authorized sessions automatically, and encryption remains a storage-level safeguard rather than a runtime control.
Protection Against Credential Compromise (leaked DB credentials or stolen AWS keys)	High: Compromised database credentials, EC2 roles, or IAM keys are insufficient to retrieve plaintext. Ubiq requires a second set of credentials and IAM authorization before releasing decryption keys. Even if attackers compromise an application account or read data via stolen credentials, protected fields remain encrypted gibberish. The additional IAM-governed policy layer sharply limits blast radius—attackers need both the DB credentials and Ubiq access to breach data.	Low: If an attacker gains valid RDS credentials or AWS keys with read access to snapshots, they can view any data that account is authorized for. Encryption at rest decrypts automatically for the database engine, and there is no secondary encryption layer tied to user identity. AWS mitigations like short-lived IAM DB tokens or credential rotation help limit exposure, but a stolen credential still allows queries that return plaintext.	Medium: Aurora supports IAM Database Authentication for MySQL and PostgreSQL, reducing credential persistence by generating short-lived IAM tokens instead of static passwords. This limits reuse but does not change the trust boundary—once authenticated, the engine decrypts data for that session. A compromised IAM token or role with sufficient privileges still yields plaintext results.
Granularity of Access Control	Fine-grained, identity-aware: Encryption and tokenization can be applied at field or even value level, with IAM-driven rules determining who can decrypt what. Two users can query the same table and see different results—masked, tokenized, or plaintext—based on their role and context. Policies are evaluated externally, so even if a DBA changes SQL GRANTs, Ubiq’s policy enforcement prevails.	Coarse to moderate: Access controls are SQL-engine based—GRANTs, roles, views, and optional row-level security (depending on the engine). These mechanisms work for honest users but exist entirely within the DB trust boundary; superusers can bypass them. Masking functions (e.g., SQL Server Dynamic Data Masking) operate on the fly but leave plaintext in storage. RDS provides no native field-level encryption tied to IAM identity.	Moderate: Aurora PostgreSQL supports row-level security (RLS) and column masking, giving it finer policy capabilities than RDS MySQL. However, these are logical enforcement layers that can be disabled by superusers. Aurora MySQL supports standard GRANTs and views only. Neither encrypts data per user; controls are permissions-based, not cryptographic.
Runtime Enforcement (Context-Aware)	Yes, continuous: Every decryption call is checked at runtime against IAM policy and context (user, group, environment, device, time). Keys are released only when all conditions are satisfied. If a user’s role changes mid-session or their context becomes non-compliant, decryption halts immediately. This provides true Zero Trust behavior—authorization is continuous, not one-time.	Limited: RDS authorizes at query execution. The database verifies privileges, executes the SQL statement, and returns plaintext for permitted queries. Once a session is authorized, the data remains accessible for the duration of the connection. There is no external or ongoing validation of identity, device, or context.	Limited but auditable: Aurora operates similarly to RDS but integrates Database Activity Streams, which can detect anomalous access patterns. Enforcement is still static—authorization is checked once at query time—but suspicious behavior can be alerted on. There is no built-in mechanism for conditional, context-aware decryption.
Integration Effort & Performance Overhead	Moderate integration, low overhead: Integrating Ubiq typically involves instrumenting application logic or ETL paths to encrypt/decrypt specific columns via SDKs or UDFs. Once integrated, performance overhead is minimal—microseconds to milliseconds per protected value—and scales horizontally. Encryption applies only to sensitive fields, leaving the rest of the query path unaffected. External calls to Ubiq are optimized and can be securely cached for high throughput.	Low effort, minimal overhead: Enabling encryption at rest is a configuration step during DB creation or modification. KMS or TDE encryption/decryption is performed by AWS hardware acceleration and is invisible to applications. Performance impact is generally under 3–5%, mostly in I/O throughput.	Low effort, minor overhead: Aurora behaves similarly to RDS for KMS encryption, with hardware acceleration at the storage layer. Enabling Activity Streams adds a small, constant cost for streaming encrypted logs to Kinesis but has negligible impact on query performance.
Data Type Coverage (structured tables, files, backups, streams)	Broad: Ubiq protects structured data in relational tables, semi-structured JSON, and unstructured files or streams. Encryption travels with data wherever it moves—ETL jobs, analytics pipelines, exports, or message queues—under the same IAM policy. Even if an RDS snapshot or Aurora export is copied to S3, protected fields remain encrypted unless decrypted by Ubiq for an authorized user.	Medium: RDS encrypts database files, backups, and snapshots through KMS. Data in transit can be secured with SSL/TLS, but exports (e.g., CSV dumps, DMS migrations) are plaintext unless separately encrypted. Protection ends at the database boundary.	Medium-High: Aurora encrypts all cluster volumes and replicas through KMS and applies encryption to backups, snapshots, and streams. It also extends encryption to cross-region replication and Global Database copies. However, exports and downstream analytics targets still require separate encryption controls.
Key Management Model	Externalized and granular: Ubiq manages keys in a dedicated FIPS-validated or customer HSM service. Each dataset or field can have its own DEK, wrapped under a master key (BYOK supported). Key release is always identity-gated and logged. Keys can be rotated or revoked without full re-encryption, and administrators of the database never see or control them. This separation enforces cryptographic isolation between DB management and data decryption authority.	Platform-managed (coarse): RDS uses a single KMS CMK per DB instance or cluster. That key encrypts storage volumes, backups, and snapshots. The engine automatically retrieves data keys to decrypt blocks for authorized sessions. Customers can rotate CMKs and use BYOK to revoke access, but this disables the entire DB, not individual fields or users.	Platform-managed with hierarchy: Aurora’s architecture uses a KMS CMK per cluster and unique data keys for each storage segment. This improves compartmentalization at the infrastructure level but is still transparent to the database layer—any authorized session decrypts data automatically. There is no per-identity key release or IAM-based gating.
IAM Compatibility (Enterprise Integration & Least-Privilege)	Yes – tightly integrated: Ubiq ties directly into enterprise IdPs (Okta, Entra ID, LDAP, etc.) so IAM roles and attributes govern decryption. Disabling a user in the IdP instantly revokes their decryption rights. Logs show which identity decrypted which data, creating a full audit trail. Least-privilege principles from IAM extend to the data layer automatically.	Partial: IAM governs who can create, manage, or delete RDS resources and KMS keys. Data-level access remains tied to database logins and SQL privileges. IAM Database Authentication is limited to certain engines and handles login, not row- or field-level policy enforcement.	Medium: Aurora expands on RDS by supporting IAM Database Authentication and mapping AWS IAM roles to temporary DB users. It also integrates KMS permissions and Activity Streams auditing, but IAM is still not used to enforce row- or field-level decryption.

Explanatory Notes and Key Insights

Encryption at Rest vs Runtime Threats
RDS and Aurora encrypt data at rest with KMS and support engine TDE in some cases, which prevents offline theft of files, backups, or snapshots. Once a database session is authorized, the engine returns plaintext results to that session, so storage encryption does not stop insiders or stolen credentials from reading sensitive data. Ubiq extends protection into runtime by binding decryption to identity and policy; even inside active sessions, data remains encrypted until the external check passes.

Governance vs Encryption Granularity
Engine features (GRANTs, views, masking, row-level security) provide strong governance but operate within the database trust boundary and are not cryptographic per identity. Superusers can disable or bypass them. Ubiq delivers per-field, per-identity encryption/tokenization driven by enterprise IAM, so different users can see different representations (masked vs plaintext) of the same column under policy.

Runtime and Context Enforcement
RDS/Aurora authorize queries at execution and apply engine policies where available, but do not continuously evaluate context after authorization. Ubiq enforces just-in-time key release on every decrypt based on IAM attributes and optional context (user, group, environment, time), aligning with Zero Trust and preventing misuse of valid sessions.

Credential Compromise and Kill Switch
If an attacker steals a privileged DB credential or token, native controls will decrypt for that session. Ubiq requires both DB access and Ubiq IAM authorization; without the latter, protected fields remain ciphertext. Teams can revoke a user, role, or dataset policy immediately to cut off decryption without taking the database offline, reducing blast radius and speeding containment.

Integration and Performance
Native controls are largely configuration-only and add minimal overhead but depend on platform trust. Ubiq requires modest, targeted integration (SDK/UDF calls) for selected fields. Overhead is microseconds to milliseconds per protected value and limited to those fields, preserving analytics performance while adding identity-aware protection.

Key Management and Trust Separation
KMS centralizes storage keys at the DB or cluster level and auto-decrypts for authorized sessions. Ubiq externalizes keys into a FIPS-validated or customer HSM service and releases them only after IAM policy approval. This separation of duties prevents DBAs or service principals from automatically decrypting data and maintains cryptographic isolation if database infrastructure is compromised.

Summary

RDS/Aurora’s native controls — KMS encryption at rest, optional TDE (engine dependent), TLS in transit, GRANTs/RLS/masking, and Database Activity Streams — deliver strong governance and compliance. But once a user or service is authorized, the database returns plaintext inside running sessions; there is no identity-bound decryption at runtime, and protections do not persist beyond the service boundary. As a result, privileged insiders and stolen credentials can still yield cleartext within permitted scopes.

Ubiq complements RDS/Aurora by applying identity-driven encryption, tokenization, and masking directly to sensitive fields, with keys externalized and released only after IAM policy validation. Decryption happens just in time for verified identities, so data remains encrypted in active queries, notebooks, or ETL jobs — and stays protected when exported to files, streams, or other stores. The outcome is stronger defense against insider abuse and credential compromise, aligned with Zero Trust and least-privilege principles across multi-team and multi-cloud environments.

References