Protecting your business’s data can seem like tough work, and if you’ve not been in the industry for a long time, you may not even know how crucial protecting business data can be. With a significant growth in the digital industry, data threats have increased. And, this has further increased the importance of data protection.
Company data could be your organization’s financial information, customer records, employee information, and intellectual property details. Further, a minor breach of such data can lead to serious legal consequences, a bad reputation in the industry, and financial drains.
Hence, data protection is not just necessary but mandatory, that too in a smart, strategic manner. Encryption and hashing have worked miracles for companies across industries when it comes to protecting business data at rest, in transition, and in use.
In this article, we have discussed three core stages of business data and how they can be protected. Be sure to read till the end to know more!
The Three States of Data and Their Risks
The following are the three stages of data and their risks:
Data in Transit
This is the state when data is moving from one location to another through either emails, file transfers, or API. Data becomes the most vulnerable during this stage because there is a big possibility of interruption through packet sniffing and a man-in-the-middle attack. Further, data is usually transferred through the public internet, which further strengthens vulnerability.
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Data at Rest
Data at rest refers to the data that’s being stored. Such data could be present on a server, cloud backups, or database records. Though static, attackers find them to be very vulnerable and therefore, accessible. Physically stealing the hardware, using malware, or insider threats are how data at rest are usually stolen.
Data in Use
This refers to the data that’s being used. Such data could be one that’s being viewed at the given time, mishandled through an application, or held in RAM. Since they are being actively processed, they are more challenging to access.
Example to Consider
One data record can be passed through all three stages. Take a customer’s credit card number as an example. When it’s in transit and being sent to the gateway, it’s data in transit. When it’s in the company’s encrypted data log, it’s at rest. Likewise, when a user processes a refund through the POS system, it’s in use.
Encryption and Hashing: What They Do and When to Use Them
Encryption converts readable data into unreadable data. And, only someone with the key can access the readable data.
- Data in Transit: Protects websites and APIs through encryption via Transport Layer Security or TLS.
- Data at Rest: Used in disk encryption and database storage to protect algorithms like AES-256.
- Data in Use: Emerging technologies help protect data through encryption even while being processed.
Similarly, hashing is a one-way function that creates fixed-length string or hash with the help of data. It is suitable for checking data, integrating or protecting passwords. A key difference between encryption and hashing is that, the former is reversible and the latter isn’t.
In the real business world, encryption is useful for financial service firms to secure client documents and for TLS to protect data. Hashing is applicable when you enter an employee’s password, and it’s hashed as it’s compared with other hashes. If the hash matches, access is granted.
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...The Business Case: Compliance, Trust, and Resilience
The business case includes compliance, trust, and resilience, which are all briefly explained below:
Compliance
Along with compliance, regulations like GDPR, ISO/IEC 27001, and HIPAA help build a strong data protection mechanism. Not complying to them can lead to legal consequences.
Trust
Encryption helps protect data even after it’s been stolen. Attackers may access the data, but they won’t be able to turn it into something readable.
Resilience
Encrypted data is all about resilience. Even when the attackers have your company’s data, they can’t decrypt it. Henceforth, the data becomes useless.
Mini Case Study in The Context
Even after having been attacked, a medium-sized company could recover from ransomware in just 48 hours. The secret was encryption. They stood by legal laws while also protecting customer information, all without paying a ransom.
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...Conclusion: Encrypt Before It’s Too Late
Encryption and hashing are a requisite in today’s day and age, regardless of the size and nature of your company. When you encrypt and hash your data in transit, at rest, or in use, you can avoid data breach costs, meet regulatory criteria, make incident response strong, and earn customer trust.
Regular audits and employee training help you protect data at all times. The key is to never consider any setup good enough for updates.
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