One of the major concerns about cloud computing, or any type of computing, is security. Rest assured, security professionals and vendors are quickly addressing the concern. According to a post by InformationWeek.com Editor-in-Chief Alexander Wolfe, encryption is the savior of cloud computing security.
To illustrate the power of encryption, we can compare computer security to traditional security, and data to cash. The goal of a bank robbery is to get cash, and the goal of cybercrime is to get data. To steal cash, criminals need to penetrate a building, possibly several rooms, and then the device that stores it. To steal data, criminals need to penetrate a firewall and several servers or storage area networks to get to its location.
In robberies or burglaries of the past, if criminals got the cash and got away, they had some extra spending money; but now there are dye packs triggered to explode in bags of money handed to criminals. The money becomes worthless, there is red dye everywhere, and possibly also tear gas.
In cybercrime, if criminals locate unencrypted data, they can copy it and view it; but with encryption, criminals may be able to locate and copy the data, but they cannot view it without an encryption key that converts the encrypted data to readable form. Risk is then limited to those who have the encryption key.
In his post, Alex Wolfe mentions a new type of encryption invented by IBM. “Privacy homomorphism,” or “fully homomorphic encryption” allows encrypted data to be used for analytics, meaning that reports can be run without a human able to read or decrypt the data and no individual privacy can be compromised. In the press release announcing fully homomorphic encryption, Charles Lickel, vice president of software research at IBM, said, “Fully homomorphic encryption is a bit like enabling a layperson to perform flawless neurosurgery while blindfolded, and without later remembering the episode.” Contact IBM before trying this.
Encryption also addresses concerns about multitenancy, where all accounts use the same application instance. With encryption, no one can read data without a key, and each account would of course have its own encrypted data and keys.
It may be possible to crack a safe, but it’s nearly impossible to crack a 128-bit encryption key. According to this post on MyCrypto.net, it would take 20,000 years under ideal conditions to crack a commonly used 128-bit encryption key. According to posts by Verisign and Inet2000, it would take “a trillion years” and “significantly longer than the age of the universe” to crack a 128-bit key.
While data is the end goal of cybercrime, encrypted data is useless to a criminal. Encryption protects data no matter where it resides or how it is accessed, so encryption may indeed be the savior of cloud computing security.
For more about security threats and protection, read this page from security leader TriCipher.
Do you believe that encryption is the savior of cloud computing security?
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