In this tutorial, I'll show you how to configure the column encryption in SQL server 2017. To practice, I've created a new database, then add a category table to the new database.
Encrypting column data in SQL Server will help protect your data. To encrypt the columns in the table, you need to right click on the table that you want to encrypt columns, then select Encrypt Columns
Click Next
Select your encryption type, then click Next
Click Next to continue
Click Next to continue
See your summary, then click Finish button
Waiting for your SQL Server encryption to complete, then logging back into your SQL Server. You can query your category table to see how to it works
select *from CategoriesYou will get the query result as an encrypted CategoryName column
As you can see, CategoryName is encrypted. You will not be able to insert or update data directly into the Category table from SQL Management Studio, but you can delete data from table has encrypted columns
To insert, update, delete you can excute from your application, but you should add Column Encryption Setting=Enabled to your connection string.
Add Column Encryption Setting=Enabled to your SQL Server login, you can see your data is not encrypted
