Definition
Encryption at rest
Storing data in encrypted form so it can't be read straight from the database or backups. In Even Cents the key is derived from your password, so the operator can't read your data.
Encryption at rest means data is stored in encrypted form, so that reading the raw storage — the database file, a backup, a stolen disk — yields ciphertext rather than your information.
The phrase is used loosely enough in marketing that it’s worth separating what it can mean, because the versions differ enormously in what they actually protect against.
The three common versions
Full-disk encryption. The server’s drive is encrypted. This protects against someone physically stealing the hardware and essentially nothing else. Once the machine is running, the data is plainly readable to any process on it — including anyone who compromises the server. Many services that say “encrypted at rest” mean only this.
Provider-managed encryption. The database encrypts data with a key the provider holds. This protects against a leaked backup file. It does not protect against the provider, an employee, a subpoena, or an attacker who gets far enough in to ask the application nicely — because the key is right there.
Key derived from your password. The encryption key is derived from a secret only you know, so the operator physically cannot decrypt your data. This is the version that protects against the operator itself.
Which one Even Cents uses
The third. Your financial data is encrypted under a key derived from your password. The people running Even Cents can’t read your transactions in the database or in backups, because they don’t have and can’t compute the key.
The trade-off is real
This is the part that gets left out of security marketing: if the operator can’t decrypt your data, the operator also can’t rescue you.
There is no “click here and we’ll email you a reset link” that recovers your data, because a reset link would prove the operator could decrypt it. That’s why a recovery code exists and why losing both your password and your recovery code means the data is genuinely gone.
Any service that offers both “we can’t read your data” and “we can restore your access if you forget your password” is doing one of those two things loosely. Pick the trade-off knowingly.
The full technical explanation is in is Even Cents secure?