HTEE: An HMAC based Tamper Evident Encryption

This paper presents a HMAC based Temper Evident Encryption (HTEE) technique for providing confidentiality and integrity of numeric data in a database environment through an encryption scheme based on the keyed Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC) function. The encryption scheme implemented in this project extends and improves an existing HMAC based encryption scheme. The result is a symmetric encryption process which detects unauthorized updates to ciphertext data, verifies integrity and provides confidentiality. This encryption scheme provides an alternative to standard approaches that offer confidentiality and integrity of data such as combining the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm with a hash digest. The purpose of the scheme is to provide a straightforward and efficient encryption that supports data integrity, to investigate the use of HMAC for reversible encryption and key transformation, and to improve upon an existing method.