So this might sound like a crazy question but bear with me for a minute. I can't find any info on the internet and so am here, although this might have been a good place to start.

I've recently developed an encryption engine using the .net's AES managed classes. I use a 256 bit key generated by the Rfc2898DeriveBytes function. The key is generated from a pass phrase that is at least 40 characters long. The IV is also generated from this pass phrase. The encryption class uses a CypherMode of CBC and a padding mode of PKCS7. There is a static salt that is 8 bytes long. 

The key is stored in a separate database to the data and is itself encrypted using a certificate based on the database master key.

So, my question is: is it really easy to decrypt the data if the attacker has the key? I'm not talking about the Chinese government (or even GHCQ given recent headlines), I'm talking about an attacker who steals both databases. 

What would be the steps they have to follow and/or how can I stop them on their path? The reason I ask this is that I want to know how feasible it is. Is it something that can be done in minutes or does it fall into the bracket of being infeasible? Do they have to calculate all of the parameters used when encrypting?


Question: How to make a figure span on two columns in a scientific paper?
Answer: From the TUG faq: use the starred versions figure* and table*. Unfortunately, they're somewhat limited in positioning.

Also, the same solution applies to equations. Just include them in a figure* environment. But I don't recommend doing this: it will look ugly and confusing. For an example, see this paper. (sorry, I couldn't find an example in arXiv)