Data encryption is part of your cybersecurity strategy. The purpose of it is to protect the confidentiality of the data you have stored on your servers and hard drives.
Protecting your business data is a top priority. Stolen, lost or damaged data can be costly for your business. There are legal obligations regarding certain types of data, for example personal data (GDPR) and financial data (PCI). Therefore, the data your business holds is valuable and needs to be secured.
We understand how daunting a job it can be working out how your data will be stored and shared both across your network as well as outside of it. The administrative complexities of it alone is enough to make you want to pull the plug on the whole operation.
However, we’re here to make understanding cybersecurity and data encryption easier by providing you with the information necessary to make the right choices at the right time, before an issue that could have been easily avoided becomes an IT disaster.
What is Data Encryption?
Data encryption is a way of translating data into code that can only be read by authorised personnel. Data is effectively scrambled up so it is unreadable. In order to unscramble it, an encryption key is needed. Data encryption translates plaintext (unencrypted data) into ciphertext (encrypted data). Users can decrypt data by using an encryption key.
When we talk about encryption, we categorise data into two types:
- Data at Rest – also called static data. This is data which is stored on servers, desktops or hard drives. Any application used to access data at rest will need to be configured in order to decrypt encrypted data.
- Data in Transit – also called dynamic data. This is data which travels over a network or the internet, the most common example being email. In this instance, both the sender and received will need to have encryption/decryption capabilities.
There are also two types of data encryption:
- Symmetric – uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt a file. This means the sender must communicate the key with the receiver.
- Asymmetric – uses two different keys to encrypt and decrypt. The encryption key is public whilst the decryption key remains private.
Data Encryption Made Easy
How complex can data encryption possibly be? The answer and solution will depend on how sophisticated your requirements are. At any one time there is a range of applications, both free and paid, available to you at the touch of a fingertip.
The answer will invariably become more demanding dependant on your business needs. Overall, when it comes to best practices on encryption, you are going to want it to align with your businesses security policies.
Our highly experienced team can help build your cyber security capabilities and also support you in maintaining your compliance, as an end-to-end managed service. Working together to keep your IT infrastructure, applications, data and users safe.
What Services are Included?
Beyond the basics, the services required to keep your business protected and help you run the day-to-day operations as smoothly as possible may require further conversation. In the meantime, here are some ways in which our highly-experienced team will be able to support you with your cyber security needs;
- Threat management
- Access management
- Preventative maintenance and updates
- Regular software patching
- Vulnerability management
- Security incident response
- User education and training
- Proactive 24/7/365 security monitoring
If you have questions about cybersecurity, call us on +44 203 034 2244 or +1 323 984 8908 Alternately, you can contact us online. We will be happy to help you overcome your IT challenges. We have engineering bases in the United Kingdom, Europe and Southern California and our group of highly experienced engineers are available 24/7 to assist and ensure that your business’ IT infrastructure is running seamlessly.
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