Data encryption and keys

Hi,
I would like to encrypt data in my database. I want encrypted column value to be viewable only for certain group of users. Users that has access to my database doesn't meant they can access to my encrypted data.

Currently, I am using the following "approach" as my key management.

create master key encryption by password= 'MasterKeyPass'

CREATE ASYMMETRIC KEY MyAsymmKey AUTHORIZATION MyUser
WITH ALGORITHM = RSA_1024
ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD ='MyAsymmPass'

CREATE SYMMETRIC KEY MySymmKey WITH ALGORITHM = DES
ENCRYPTION BY ASYMMETRIC KEY MyAsymmKey

My data will be encrypted using Symmetric key MySymmKey.

User who want to access my data must have MasterKey and MyAsymmKey password.
Is it OK? Any better way?

Thank you

As long as the user you are trying to protect against is not a dbo or sysadmin, you can also use permissions (i.e. "GRANT CONTROL ON ASYMMETRIC KEY :: MyAsymmKey TO user1") to restrict access rather than through passwords. The advantage is the user then doesn't have to depend on memorizing a password and you don't have to pass any password values in which is safer from a security standpoint.

Sung

|||Fyi, Books online links up a section about BACKUP and RESTORING encryption keys http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms157275.aspx link.