You work as a Developer at ABC.com. All databases are hosted on Windows Server 2012 servers running SQL Server 2012. You are developing a custom CRM application named CorpCRM. The application will…

One-way encryption, typically achieved through hashing algorithms, is the most suitable method because it transforms the password into a unique, fixed-length string that is computationally infeasible to reverse engineer back to the original password. This approach ensures that even if an attacker gains access to the stored password hashes, they cannot directly obtain the clear-text user passwords, significantly enhancing security.

Reversible encryption allows the original password to be decrypted from its stored form, which poses a significant security risk if the encryption key is compromised, making it less secure than one-way hashing for password storage.

Encrypting File System (EFS) encrypts files and folders at the operating system level, securing the database files at rest, but it does not directly secure the passwords *within* the database application layer or dictate the method of password storage itself.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol used to encrypt data *in transit* over a network, securing communication between the application and the database server, but it does not address how passwords are *stored at rest* within the database.