In today's digitized world, data storage and encryption are surely top of mind for most chief information officers (CIOs). But given the increasing regulations and privacy implications surrounding data security, these measures should also be on the chief information security officer (CISO)'s agenda.
Most organizations need to house massive amounts of data to comply with privacy regulations, enable cognitive activities, and facilitate the construction and analysis of attack patterns. At the same time, an effective data storage strategy promotes security awareness and encourages employees and users to consider best practices from both a technological and a process point of view.
To protect the organization from unauthorized employees and external threat actors seeking to destroy or otherwise corrupt enterprise data, security teams must deploy protective measures. The most common approach to safeguarding sensitive data is encryption, but it's important to consider a few technological implications before diving head-first into an encryption strategy.
Choosing the Right Data Storage and Encryption Tools
For any organization, it's important to encrypt both structured and unstructured data. Storage solutions often deliver encryption capabilities to address part of the CISO's security concerns. The key is to select the right platform to simplify security procedures and generate consistent cost savings.
Encrypting at-rest data within storage is an attractive option that many companies opt to use on 100 percent of their data. This approach is easy and relatively inexpensive to implement, since it comes standard in many storage solutions and there are no host CPU costs. Of course, hardware-based solutions, which rely on a self-encrypting hard disk or flash drive, are less likely than software-based tools to significantly impact performance. It's also worth noting that, while encrypting data at rest is an effective way to protect any drive or box that is being retired or repurposed with virtually zero impact on performance, some use cases call for this type of encryption to be combined with technologies capable of encrypting data in motion.
Defining Your Data Storage Strategy
The key to defining an appropriate data storage and encryption strategy is to understand what risks are addressed by encrypting data at rest, in motion and in transit.
Encrypting data at rest means safeguarding data housed in the storage system. This process ensures that information is protected when single disks or flash modules are misplaced or removed from the premises for repair, or the storage system is stolen, discontinued or repurposed. Less effective alternative options include employing a data erasure service to destroy all information residing on the storage system and even buying back the drives and destroying them. Disk encryption is a better method because it renders stolen or misplaced data unreadable without a decryption key.
[...]
Source: Security Intelligence (View full article)
Posted by Dan Corcoran on November 15, 2017 06:46 AM
Post a comment