Patent ID: 8744076

Claim:
A method for accessing encrypting data, the method comprising: selecting, by a computer, encrypted data on which to perform an integrity check, wherein the encrypted data is stored in a data repository along with a first salt plaintext that has been stored in association with the encrypted data; decrypting the encrypted data to produce preprocessed unencrypted data; performing an XOR operation on the preprocessed unencrypted data to produce a block-justified plaintext message; obtaining, from the block-justified plaintext message, a padding byte indicating both an amount of randomly generated padding appended to a salt plaintext needed to block-justify unencrypted data and a byte offset within the block-justified plaintext message where the unencrypted data begins, wherein the padding byte, the salt plaintext, the amount of padding and the unencrypted data combination comprise the block-justified plaintext message; retrieving the salt plaintext from the block-justified plaintext message based on the padding byte of the block-justified plaintext message; determining whether the retrieved salt plaintext matches the first salt plaintext; and if the retrieved salt plaintext does not match the first salt plaintext, indicating that the encrypted data has been altered.