GBase 8a Cloud Data Warehouse fortifies financial MLPS Level 3 defenses with HSM and national commercial cryptography

Data security in the financial industry is never a trivial matter. Customer information, transaction logs, credit data — a leak in any of these can spell disaster. To make matters worse, regulatory requirements pile up: MLPS Level 3 is the baseline, commercial cryptography is mandatory, and HSM hardware encryption is a non-negotiable requirement. With so many requirements stacked together, traditional data warehouses often struggle to keep up.GBase 8a Cloud Data Warehouse offers a solution: tackle MLPS compliance, commercial cryptography adoption, and HSM integration all at once.Now, let's take a deep dive into this "triple-layer protective armor" built for financial data.

The Three Pillars of Financial Compliance: MLPS, Commercial Cryptography, and HSM

For financial institutions, data security inevitably revolves around three major pillars:

Pillar One: MLPS Level 3.

This is a mandatory baseline for financial information systems. The GB/T 22239 standard draws a red line across six dimensions — physical security, network security, and data security, among others — requiring systems to prove they can withstand medium-intensity cyberattacks with no data loss, leakage, or tampering.

Pillar Two: Commercial Cryptography.

Encryption algorithms (SM2, SM3, SM4, etc.) sanctioned by China's State Cryptography Administration represent the "officially designated language" for financial data encryption. The JR/T 0255 standard mandates that data must be encrypted at rest and in transit, and authentication must rely on cryptographic methods. In short, without commercial cryptography, compliance is out of the question.

Pillar Three: HSM Hardware Security Module.

Software encryption alone isn't enough — where you store the keys is the real challenge. In memory? They could be stolen. On a hard drive? They could be compromised. An HSM serves as a dedicated "hardware vault" where key generation, storage, and usage all take place inside. The private key never leaves the module, and with physical isolation plus tamper resistance, attackers are locked out completely.

These three pillars grow progressively more demanding, yet every one must be addressed. Traditional data warehouses either struggle or are too slow to tackle them;GBase 8a Cloud Data Warehouse's choice is to carve all three climbing paths at once.

GBase 8a's Triple-Layer Protective Armor: From Compliance to Security in One Step

GBase 8a Cloud Data Warehouse brings unique strengths to the security domain: it is the first database to receive a commercial cryptographic product model certificate from the State Cryptography Administration, and it has passed MLPS Level 4 evaluation as well as dual evaluations by the State Cryptography Administration. Built upon this authoritative certification system, the "triple-layer protective armor" designed for financial scenarios addresses MLPS, commercial cryptography, and HSM compliance requirements across every layer — from data encryption and system protection to key management.

Layer One: Data Security Armor — Encryption + Audit + Access Control

To meet MLPS Level 3 requirements for data confidentiality, integrity, and availability, GBase 8a deploys three capabilities:

Storage Encryption: Supports commercial cryptographic algorithms such as SM4 for field-level and table-level encryption of sensitive data. Data at rest becomes nothing but gibberish — even if stolen, it's useless.

Transmission Encryption: SSL/TLS protocols combined with commercial cryptographic algorithms keep data "invisible" as it travels across networks, making eavesdropping and tampering impossible.

Access Control: Role-based access control (RBAC) clearly defines who can view what data and perform which operations. Every action is automatically logged, with records retained for over six months — readily available for traceability whenever MLPS assessments require it.

Layer Two: System Security Armor — Cloud-Native Isolation + Audit Monitoring + High Availability

GBase 8a's cloud-native architecture elevates system security to a new level:

Separation of Storage and Compute: Storage and compute scale independently, with multi-tenant resource isolation ensuring data from different tenants is inherently separated. Cross-tenant data leakage? Impossible.

Intelligent Audit: The system monitors all operations in real time, automatically identifying and alerting on abnormal behaviors such as brute-force attacks and SQL injection. Complete audit log export delivers a ready-made "chain of evidence" for MLPS evaluations.

High Availability: Real-time remote backup with RTO ≤ 15 minutes and RPO ≤ 5 minutes. Even if a data center fails, business operations can recover quickly, effortlessly satisfying MLPS Level 3 availability demands.

Layer Three: Management Security Armor — Unified Policies + Emergency Response

GBase 8a provides standard security management interfaces that integrate with a financial institution's existing security platforms, enabling unified policy configuration and monitoring. Essential management features — password complexity, periodic rotation, multi-factor authentication — are all built in. In the event of a security incident, the emergency response mechanism kicks in quickly to minimize damage.

Hardcore Upgrade: HSM + Commercial Cryptography Adds a "Physical Vault" for Keys

Software-level encryption alone is not enough — where is the safest place to store your core keys?GBase 8a's answer: inside an HSM.

GBase 8a supports standard interfaces such as PKCS#11 and JCE, enabling seamless integration with mainstream HSM devices. Key generation, storage, usage, and destruction all occur entirely inside the HSM — the private key never leaves. This means that even if a database server is compromised, attackers only get their hands on encrypted data; the true keys remain safe inside the HSM, untouchable and unstealable.

Meanwhile, the hardware acceleration of the HSM dramatically boosts encryption operation efficiency. Financial transaction data encryption, handling hundreds of thousands of transactions per second with millisecond-level response times, maintains security without compromising performance.

On the commercial cryptography front, GBase 8a fully supports SM2, SM3, and SM4, so whether for data encryption, identity authentication, or digital signatures, you can use "national-standard cryptographic locks." Everything required by the JR/T 0255 standard is covered here.

More critically, these three layers of protection are not isolated but deeply integrated. Commercial cryptographic encryption meets MLPS requirements for data encryption, HSMs elevate key security levels, and audit logs provide evidence for evaluations — compliance, security, and efficiency form a closed loop.

Proven in Action: Major State-Owned Banks and Insurance Institutions Are Already On Board

This solution is far from theoretical. Currently, GBase 8a Cloud Data Warehouse has achieved large-scale deployment across multiple financial entities, including major state-owned banks, joint-stock banks, and insurance institutions. Leveraging its robust security compliance capabilities and efficient data analytics performance, it helps financial institutions satisfy MLPS Level 3 and commercial cryptography compliance requirements while boosting data value extraction efficiency — achieving a win-win between compliance and business.

A major state-owned bank upgraded its core systems by building a risk mart and regulatory reporting platform on GBase 8a spanning nearly a thousand nodes. Sensitive data such as customer information and transaction logs undergo field-level encryption at rest, with HSMs managing the keys. MLPS Level 3 certification was achieved in one go. Cloud-native elastic scaling shortened resource provisioning from weeks to hours, improving efficiency by over 30%.

A large insurance institution built its customer data platform on GBase 8a. SM4 encryption safeguards data at rest, SM2 handles authentication, and HSMs manage the keys — ensuring customer privacy is rigorously protected. Data analytics efficiency improved, enabling better product design optimization and faster claims processing, delivering a win-win in compliance and business outcomes.

Data security in the financial industry has never been optional. MLPS Level 3, commercial cryptography, and HSMs are all mandatory. GBase 8a Cloud Data Warehouse's approach is not to tackle these three pieces separately but to carve all three climbing paths at once.

As the first database to earn a commercial cryptographic product model certificate from the State Cryptography Administration,GBase 8a wraps financial data in a "triple-layer protective armor" through its cloud-native architecture, full-dimension security capabilities, and deep integration of HSM with commercial cryptography. Compliance without compromise, security without downgrading, efficiency without sacrifice. This may well be the very sense of security that financial institutions need most in their digital transformation journey. Moving forward, GBase 8a will continue to iterate, making security smarter and efficiency more robust, delivering dual assurance for an even wider range of industry scenarios.