What encryption methods are applied to phone number data in transit?

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When phone number data is stored in databases, file systems, or any other persistent storage system, it is considered “data at rest.” Securing this data is essential to protect user privacy and comply with data protection regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA. One of the most effective methods of safeguarding phone numbers at rest is encryption—converting the data into a format that can only be read with a decryption key.

1. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
AES is the most widely used encryption method for protecting data at rest. It is a symmetric key encryption algorithm, meaning the same key is used for both encryption and decryption. AES supports 128-bit, 192-bit, and 256-bit key lengths, with AES-256 being the most secure and recommended for highly sensitive information like personal phone numbers.

Organizations typically use AES in two main modes:

AES-CBC (Cipher Block Chaining): Requires an initialization buy telemarketing data vector (IV) and is vulnerable to certain attacks if not implemented carefully.

AES-GCM (Galois/Counter Mode): Offers both encryption and integrity (authentication) and is considered more secure and efficient.

2. Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)
TDE is used by many relational database management systems (RDBMS) like Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL. It encrypts the entire database file at the storage level using symmetric encryption (usually AES) without requiring changes to applications. This protects phone number data even if the storage device is stolen.

3. File/Volume-Level Encryption
Some systems opt for encrypting entire disks or filesystems using solutions like:

BitLocker (Windows)

FileVault (macOS)

LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup)

These tools encrypt all data at rest, including phone numbers, without application-level changes. However, once the system is unlocked, the data becomes accessible, which may