contents of mysql database readable in text editor

[Richard Martin]

Hello,
I was hoping to get some help regarding an issue that was uncovered during a security audit.

We currently use MySQL community edition version 5.1, but the issue was reproducible in version 5.6 as well.

Basically, as part of a security audit, someone tried to open up the mysql database data file (idbata1) in a text editor. Most of the information in the file is encoded/encrypted, but there was some amount of free text data clearly visible via the text editor. This was considered a security violation as we store potentially private/sensitive data in our database.

We also tried using the barracuda file format to see if that would fix it, but it didn't. We were still able to open the file in a text editor and view the partial contents.

Is there anyway, within mysql that we can prevent this from happening (aside from actually encrypting the data as it is written to the DB)? Can we store the data in a different format?

Thank you.

Regards,
Richard