US Patent 11972020 Flexible format encryption

Encryption is performed at the field level within a data object, in response to an encryption indicator. Encrypted fields are nulled or zeroed out and the encrypted values are stored in encryption metadata with a path identifying the locations of the encrypted fields. An encrypted data key is appended with a decryption identifier and stored in the encryption metadata. The encrypted data object may be reformatted while encrypted. The encrypted data key is extracted from the encryption metadata and the decryption identifier is used to identify a master key used to decrypt the encrypted data key. The data key is used to decrypt the encrypted values and the decrypted values are stored in the fields identified by the paths.