Unlocking encryption—A key to data security

Planning a successful implementation

There are six keys to implementing an encryption capability within your overall data protection and disaster recovery strategy. These represent the true “critical success factors.” Get these six correct and you'll have a very high probability of success:

1. Maintain universal data recovery. Wherever the encrypted data resides (local backup device, remote data center, offline media, or archive media), you must be able to reliably reverse the process and produce unencrypted data.

2. Select a single approach for all your sensitive data. Be sure to pick an approach that allows you to implement encryption once, and protect all your sensitive data through a single, integrated capability.

3. Minimise resource impact. Encryption can come at a price. Be sure yours is acceptably small. Be sure the CPU load from the encryption process is sufficiently “lightweight” to avoid a material decay in the rate at which your systems process their normal work. Save network bandwidth by compressing data before transmission, and by sending only changed blocks of data. Choose a simple, powerful, and intuitive user interface.

4. Prevent unauthorized access to data. Data should be encrypted so that a “clear text” copy may be reproduced only after proper authentication has been provided.

5. Have a key management strategy. You should choose a solution with powerful key management capabilities, making it easy to change keys frequently, recover old files for which the original keys may have been lost, and otherwise strike a balance between safety and accessibility.

6. Test in advance. You must prove that your solution can both encrypt (and store encrypted data in all locations) and successfully create clear text from any encrypted sources.

Historically, the cost and difficulty associated with implementing encryption to augment a firm's data security was simply too daunting, especially for small- to medium-sized enterprises. But now solutions exist that bring enterprise-class encryption technology to businesses of all sizes.

See original article on scmagazineus.com

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