Contact us anytime to know more — Kuldeep K., Founder & CEO CISIN
In cybersecurity, this holds especially true. With digital threats continuing to escalate in size and severity, businesses should take proactive steps to protect themselves against data breaches or losses that could have disastrous repercussions - from financial losses and reputational harm to customer churn and trust issues.
Given all that's at stake, strengthening your cybersecurity posture should be of utmost priority. Data encryption is one of the best measures available; using encryption algorithms to turn data into forms which cannot be understood is one approach which may prevent unauthorized access to this sensitive data.
What Is Data Encryption?
Data encryption is the process of converting information into an unreadable format that is inaccessible without decryption.
To decrypt, the recipient requires access to a cipher or decryption key. Encrypting data creates a secret language or code that only the recipient of your message can decipher to understand it.
Data encryption takes an excerpt of data and converts it to another form so only those who possess access to its key can read it. Ciphertext and plaintext are terms commonly used to distinguish data encryption and decryption processes, respectively.
Data encryption serves to maintain digital data confidentiality.
As one may imagine, data security has become an ever-increasing concern for companies as data volumes continue to skyrocket and employees transport confidential business files on laptops and mobile devices.
As companies and their employees become more frequently engaged with cloud services, more data is leaving the walls of the business and being transferred from device to device - helping businesses meet today's business requirements more easily. Data mobility allows thieves to gain entry to data that IT departments attempt to protect. By studying more on this subject, you'll gain more knowledge on both forms of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric.
Symmetric encryption is the oldest and best-known form of data protection, using one secret key for both encryption and decryption; both sender and recipient know their key. Asymmetric encryption, on the other hand, is a more recent technology; some refer to it as public key cryptography.
Asymmetric encryption uses two keys instead of just one: public and private keys. While anyone with your public key can send information your way, only you know your private one. For more information on symmetric and asymmetric encryption, here's an article by SSL2BUY that offers more insight.
What Should You Encrypt?
Two types of data need to be encrypted: personally identifiable information and confidential business intellectual property.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) includes any form of data which allows another individual to identify you uniquely. Thieves could use information like your driver's license or social security number to steal your identity and move on to more serious crimes such as applying for credit cards or loans under your name.
One recent attack against HBO allowed hackers to gain access to many programs, such as Game of Thrones. What many media outlets didn't report was that this same group also obtained personal information of actors featured on HBO shows.
Sony Pictures experienced a major cyber attack in that exposed information such as actors' salaries per film.
To combat such attacks, steps need to be taken on multiple fronts: Personal data often resides on employee phones, tablets, and laptops; it should, therefore, be fully encrypted before being stored securely on them.
Modern business practices such as Bring Your Device (BYOD) may make this difficult, but you must push forward. Thieves who cannot access backdoor exploits often employ employee credentials and passwords in order to gain entry through the front door instead.
If you watched any of the debates leading up to the U.S. elections, you might recall Donald Trump taking an aggressive stance against China for its theft of American businesses' intellectual property.
President Trump continues to target China, alleging that their government forces American companies to work with local Chinese partners so they can gain entry to its massive market.
Trump alleges these partners, in turn, take intellectual property belonging to America from America. Consider what information your employees access daily about customers, the plans for your new product launch and marketing blitz, as well as any competitors who could gain from knowing more about your top 20 clients.
There's an adage about criminals breaking into banks for one reason only - to steal the money! Digital thieves today instead target companies because this is where their most valuable data resides.
If your budget does not allow you to encrypt everything, which types of data should you prioritize? Customer Information: Banking and healthcare industries have regulations in place that govern how consumer information should be protected; additional regulations may apply if this is your line of work. Even if your business operates outside these industries, taking security seriously remains essential - as companies like Target and Home Depot discovered.
Customer data protection must remain a top priority because your reputation relies on it. Financial Reports: Many organizations hold back from sharing this information publicly. Make sure that you have found an encrypted location for all of your important documents and encrypt it immediately.
Limit access to this location only to those who require it. Product Release Documents: How many employees at your company carry an Excel document that contains your product release schedule for the next 24 months on their laptops? Thieves target business travelers and their laptops both for the information they contain as well as for the hardware itself.
Thieves often target these travelers due to the distribution of research and development data across multiple departments within an organization.
Not every company makes investments in this area, but if yours does, protect it with encryption. Each business generates its treasure trove of invaluable information - you should consider encrypting email and legal documentation as an additional measure.
At Microsoft, any laptop accessed to team finances or product release schedules was required to use BitLocker drive encryption; later, this requirement was implemented across the company. It would help if you assumed your employees possess confidential data on products or customers of your business that needs protection, make encryption an integral part of employee responsibilities, and use appropriate methods.
How Does Data Encryption Work?
Data encryption uses algorithms to convert plaintext information into random, indecipherable formats.
The process consists of three elements: plaintext message, encryption algorithm and secret key.
Plaintext messages represent the original data to be protected, which are then encrypted using an encryption algorithm and converted to ciphertext.
Only individuals possessing access to a secret key (a series of characters used to decrypt ciphertext) can encrypt and understand its message.
Thus, even if someone were to gain access to or intercept your data, they cannot decrypt it without using your key.
Data encryption is essential for businesses seeking to protect sensitive information online from online threats, ensuring that any compromised data remains unintelligible and useless to attackers even in the event of a breach.
Common Encryption Algorithm Types
Your security options for protecting data depend entirely upon your needs and preferences, with some of the more commonly used encryption algorithms being: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): As a symmetric encryption algorithm, AES utilizes the same key for both encryption and decryption - offering greater security while being more cost-effective.
AES has become popular among top institutions - including those within the US government itself - due to its security and efficiency benefits.
Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES): As with AES, 3DES uses three keys rather than just one to secure data encryption.
While its algorithm is more complicated than AES's one key solution, many businesses still opt for 3DES because its compatibility with earlier encryption standards allows businesses to take advantage of it.
Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA): As an asymmetric encryption algorithm, RSA uses two separate keys for encryption and decryption purposes.
Generally used to secure communications channels in the e-commerce and banking sectors.
Why Is Data Encryption Important for Businesses?
Adopting technology to provide better services more efficiently and to connect with customers can give your organization an important competitive edge.
Still, it also increases your vulnerability to malicious cybercrime attacks. Common threats you could face include:
Phishing Attacks: Phishing attacks are forms of social engineering in which an attacker masquerades as a reliable organization in order to deceive victims into sharing personal data such as usernames, passwords and credit card numbers.
Malware: Malicious software designed to damage, disrupt, or steal information from computer systems is known as Malware.
Malware comes in various forms, including Trojan horses, worms, and viruses that seek to cause havoc within these computer systems.
Insider Threats: Insider threats arise when members of an organization, including partners, contractors or employees with access to private data, may misuse it either for their gain or harm the company in which they work.
Data encryption can protect your organization from such risks since data is converted into an unreadable format, and cybercriminals cannot use it even if they gain access to it.
Data encryption is essential in protecting sensitive information and mitigating cyber threats, ensuring its safety even against emerging attacks.
By adopting stringent encryption standards, you can protect your data even from emerging cyber-attacks.
Benefits of Data Encryption
Data encryption provides benefits ranging from enhancing operations and security compliance to improving your bottom line.
Protecting Data from Cyber Threats
As with other brands, your organization generates tons of valuable data daily via operations and customer interactions.Data encryption also protects against insider attacks.
Corporations can lessen the danger of insiders abusing or leaking sensitive data by restricting access and encrypting it.
Limiting Access to Sensitive Information
Accessing data should only be granted to authorized people, yet not all data should be treated equally and sensitively.
For instance, proprietary material or consumer financial and health information data is extremely confidential - should it become exposed, the consequences would far surpass a leak from CSR projects.
By restricting access to sensitive data, you'll also reduce human error data breaches. Even if an employee sends sensitive information in error, its recipient cannot gain access.
Improving Compliance with Data Privacy Regulations
Because of a surge in data privacy regulations, corporations must now prioritize compliance.
Regulations like the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and US HIPAA require businesses to secure sensitive information.
Data encryption simplifies compliance for organizations and ensures they meet regulations efficiently. This can prevent costly non-compliance fines while strengthening customer confidence in your brand and company.
Data encryption could provide companies with a competitive advantage. A business that prioritizes data security may attract more consumers.
Increasing Customer Trust
Consumers are the primary victims of data breaches. When their information becomes exposed, they can become targets for identity theft or extortion, as well as experiencing violations of their privacy rights.
People have consequently become increasingly wary about which brands store their data.
Encrypting data not only strengthens your security posture but can also build customer confidence and become a competitive edge, drawing in more customers with its strong encryption features.
Particularly in fields like banking and healthcare that store sensitive data, data management can become an issue.
Read More: What Is Cyber Security? Its Important & Common Myths
Challenges of Data Encryption
Encrypting data can bring great benefits to your business. Yet, its implementation can present unique challenges - from handling encryption keys to system compatibility.
Implementation Costs
Initial obstacles to data encryption implementation will include cost and implementation timeframe, depending on the complexity of your infrastructure.
To effectively implement and manage encryption processes it may require investing in IT staff, training programs and encryption software/hardware. Data encryption may seem expensive, but it's vitally important for corporations to consider both its costs and benefits by creating a comprehensive plan and assessing the return on investment.
Protocol Complexity
By nature, encryption protocols are complex for non-technical users. Furthermore, various data and systems require different encryption schemes for compatibility issues, adding yet another hurdle for implementation.
So as to build and maintain encryption systems effectively, hiring IT staff or third-party experts may be necessary.
Not only will this enable you to stay abreast of encryption standards and practices, but you will be better equipped to respond swiftly when threats emerge; being aware will enable you to adjust to threats before being breached is key for protecting against compromises.
Adopting complex encryption protocols may prove to be a difficult endeavor, yet ensuring data security and effective encryption practices remains the top priority.
It would help if you considered updating your procedure regularly while investing in continuing training and education, as well as consulting experts when necessary.
Difficulty in Key Management
An essential element of successful data encryption lies in the key that allows recipients to gain access. Each member may possess their private key depending on your encryption method; as a result, you'll likely need to develop and distribute multiple keys for successful encryption.
There can also be the challenge of keeping track of many keys, making sure they only go to authorized users and protecting against compromise or loss, which could cause costly downtime, financial loss and reputational damage.
To avoid this scenario, use secure key management systems and experienced encryption key managers. Implement rules and processes to produce, distribute and restrict access to encryption keys safely.
Key management can be challenging, yet its importance cannot be overstated in the success of your data encryption efforts.
Therefore, ensure you establish effective key management from day one and build upon that success over time.
Securing the Encryption Process
Encryption increases data security by only allowing authorized personnel access. Unfortunately, any efforts at improving data security could fail if your encryption process becomes compromised, such as by being breached by hackers and their accessing encryption algorithms and keys.
To avoid such incidents, ensure you use industry-standard encryption techniques and audit your procedures periodically to detect and resolve problems.Establish encryption policies and regularly update them to maintain secure and effective solutions.
Implementing Data Encryption
Implementing data encryption may be challenging and complex. Yet, its importance cannot be overstated for safeguarding sensitive information from online threats.
Here are a few steps you should take when putting data encryption into practice:
Conduct a Risk Analysis: Before embarking on data encryption, conduct an exhaustive risk analysis to ascertain what information and threats are most sensitive in your company so as to select encryption methods best suited for you.
Establish a Policy for Data Encryption: A comprehensive strategy for data encryption must be created that specifies what methods will be employed, who has access to encryption keys and how they will be protected once data needing encryption has been identified.
Educate Your Staff: For data encryption to be effective, its correct use requires knowledge from those using it.
Therefore, make sure that any staff members who will be responsible for managing and encrypting sensitive information receive adequate training in using this method.
Regularly review your encryption procedures: Regular audits can help detect any weaknesses or vulnerabilities in your encryption methods and ensure the protection of sensitive data.Adopting ideal encryption standards is great, but to be truly successful, your efforts must also avoid common pitfalls such as:
Failing to protect all sensitive data; employing subpar encryption algorithms or protocols; failing to rotate or update encryption keys regularly; and storing encryption keys in unsafe places
Allowing Unauthorized Access to Encryption Keys
By taking these steps and practices, you can ensure your data encryption procedures successfully protect sensitive information against online attacks and avoid common hazards.
Compliance Regulations
Even though it may not be possible to encrypt all your data, focusing on the most sensitive information can make an important difference for financial services, healthcare and government agencies that deal with large volumes of sensitive data.
Encryption helps organizations comply with stringent compliance and access regulations more efficiently in these industries; organizations encrypting data can achieve compliance more efficiently as a result. Compliance with privacy laws helps firms avoid fines while keeping customer confidence strong; therefore, understanding regulations around data encryption within corporate environments is vitally important for firms - these include:
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) places obligations on organizations that process personal data of EU citizens.
Businesses must utilize data protection methods like encryption to secure customer information.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) impacts organizations that manage personal data for California residents.
It mandates businesses use appropriate security measures, such as encryption, to safeguard customer data.
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a U.S. policy that applies to organizations that deal with patient data.
To protect electronic protected health information (ePHI), organizations must implement encryption and other forms of security measures.
Best Practices for Compliance with Data Encryption Regulations
- Analyze the risks to determine which areas require encryption.
- Use trustworthy key management processes and encryption techniques.
- Utilize access restrictions to limit access to sensitive data.
- Examine and update encryption standards on a regular basis.
- Informing employees on the finest data encryption practises
Why Is The Use Of Data Encryption In Enterprises Not More Widespread?
Unstructured information, such as files or documents, becomes less predictable when we talk about encryption, who should encrypt what, and when.
Managing encrypted information can be more challenging than unencrypted, and its use requires changing one's mentality within an organization, which must also be managed accordingly.
Using encryption in organizations is hampered by a number of factors, including:
- It is difficult to use for the average user: Accessing protected data requires passwords or certificates, which may only work correctly on one device at a time; to access it properly on another computer would require additional software installations; tools are lacking for easily managing encrypted information on all platforms simultaneously.
- No clear guidelines on what to encrypt and what not to encrypt: As we previously stated, it can be hard to know exactly which information needs to be protected and which shouldn't. Some organizations employ encryption of data at rest by encrypting laptop hard drives; this prevents leaks if lost computers are found, but when documents are sent from them to third parties, they remain unprotected. Encrypting files or folders on file servers requires guiding end users as to what information should be safeguarded while automating file protection may help expedite protection efforts - particularly for information repositories where data protection is crucially needed.
- Difficult to integrate with corporate tools: At times, sensitive information resides within corporate applications like ERPs or Human Resource apps, making their encryption files potentially disruptive to document management flows. By contrast, using password-based encryption solutions does not work well within medium-sized organizations. Active Directory provides essential management of what each user encrypts without using individual passwords per file or folder encrypt. Therefore, encryption solutions need to easily integrate with corporate tools such as AD and internal applications for efficient document protection management.
- Relative Value of Encryption: Once decrypted, files cannot be controlled: As with email encryption, traditional file encryption based on passwords or certificates offers little control once files have been decrypted - once unencrypted, they can be copied or sent elsewhere without restriction or control by their original creators - which is one of the major drawbacks of "in-transit" information protection; accessing protected material shouldn't necessarily result in its unprotection altogether.
- It does not facilitate the audit of access to information: When dealing with sensitive or confidential data, it's crucial to be able to monitor its usage: who accessed it when and whether someone who doesn't have permission was able to gain entry; therefore technologies are needed that provide this functionality while keeping information encrypted - providing audit-ready control over access.
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Conclusion
No business can afford to leave their data security and protection up to chance, which is why having the right partner with experience, technology and expertise that can assist your encryption requirements is so essential.
