Next-Generation Cryptography: How to Secure Your Data Like Never Before
Although cryptography and encryption have numerous benefits, adoption is still limited, owing to a number of residual misconceptions.
Cryptography is an essential aspect of modern cybersecurity, but misconceptions about its capabilities abound. Shaun McBrearty, co-founder of Vaultree, discusses overcoming these misconceptions by learning about next-gen encryption and securing your data with maximum protection.
Data breaches continue to occur despite increased security efforts and are getting more costly. According to the 2021 IBM Cost of a Data Breach study, the average cost of a data breach increased 10% to $4.24 million, setting a new high since the yearly report began.
However, if the information exposed in a data breach is encrypted, hostile actors will be unable to use it. Cryptography is effectively an internal barrier, so your business is still protected even if the outward barrier is breached. When it comes to security solutions, however, most attempts still have a reactive rather than proactive focus.
Although cryptography and encryption have numerous benefits, adoption is still limited, owing to a number of residual misconceptions. Let’s look at those misconceptions and how cryptography fits into the modern organization, and how to put it in place.
What Is Cryptography All About?
Encryption is the process of transforming information into unreadable text so that it can be stored or transmitted safely. Text messages sent using mobile apps such as WhatsApp are one example. Users can generally find a statement within the app stating that it enables end-to-end encryption.
This means that each communication you send gets jumbled and transformed into incomprehensible data. The communication is encrypted as it leaves the app (on one end) and is unscrambled when it reaches the receiver. The information is only readable again at the recipient’s end. This procedure prohibits a third party from seeing what was transmitted.
This is a well-functioning system. Though current cryptography uses algorithms, advanced math and computer science, the essential premise remains the same: convert information into something that only those with the correct “key” can decipher.
One of the most basic methods for ensuring your company’s security is encryption. It ensures that, even if your servers and computers are attacked or if information is leaked due to human error, third parties will not be able to read it.
Barriers to Encryption Adoption
But why aren’t encryption and cryptography used more frequently if they function so well? For starters, education about cryptography needs to become more common. Typically, cryptographers have a background in mathematics. It takes a lot of knowledge for software engineers to employ encryption. For developers, the cryptographer solutions are very technical, but cryptography addresses so many problems in software development that it’s worth the effort to provide more information to developers.
In addition, scalability is seen as a problem. There’s a popular belief that while working with huge volumes of data, your performance will be constrained as the volume of data grows. Finally, many people believe cryptography is slow – and many of these algorithms are. So, once again, there is apprehension regarding performance. And many individuals wrongly believe that you can’t operate with fully encrypted data since it must first be decrypted.
See More: The Future of Encrypted Data in the Cloud: 3 Things to Understand
Next-gen Cryptography
Cryptography’s perceived complexity is holding it back from widespread usage, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Cryptography can be boiled down to a simple method that doesn’t cause software developers any additional headaches. Some of today’s new technologies are designed to be much more plug-and-play for developers.
You don’t have to choose between speed and performance when adopting encryption. Cryptography is a powerful technique that may be applied to various situations. It can be applied to several layers of the database. Full disk encryption, column-level encryption and row-level encryption are all possible options.
There are numerous approaches to choose from. Some methods for setting up a particular configuration are one-touch, while others involve a lot more human effort, and there are various security levels available.
True, many outdated systems require certain performance sacrifices to achieve the necessary level of security – but this is changing with the development of new and more advanced encryption methods.
Although the notion persists that you can’t work with fully encrypted data, things continue to advance and change in this developing field. Technology has progressed to the point where you can now safely process data. There’s a misperception that fully homomorphic encryption is slow since it allows calculations on data while it’s encrypted, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Significant progress is occurring on this front.
The Journey Begins
Data breaches aren’t going to stop happening suddenly, and the expense of defending against them is increasing. Cryptography’s beauty lies in its ability to make data breaches almost insignificant because criminals can’t make sense of what they’ve stolen – it’s meaningless to them. Deploying cryptography may seem complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Next-generation cryptography corrects the most common misunderstandings people have and provides greater data security. Some solutions are ready to connect to your system and have numerous deployment options. Take all of the information noted above into consideration as you begin your encryption journey.
Are you ready to embark on your cryptography journey? Tell us your thoughts on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. We’d love to know!
