As organisations and individuals continue to increasingly depend exclusively on digital platforms for personal and business requirements, the need for effective encryption has never been greater. From protecting personal information and financial transactions to securing communications and intellectual property, encryption plays a vital role in maintaining privacy and security. Despite its widespread adoption, its various methodologies are not often widely understood.
With organisations of all sizes facing increasingly frequent and sophisticated cyber threats and data breaches, an effective cybersecurity policy and code of practice is essential to every organisation’s data protection efforts today. With the mass migration of data to the cloud, many companies have been exposed to breaches of their data. Read our article about what you can do to counteract a data breach.
At the base of any cybersecurity protocol is effective encryption technology.
Technology global network, TechTarget, describes data encryption as “a foundational element of cybersecurity.” But it’s still an area that is quite opaque to many businesses, particularly the smaller SMEs in the technology sector.
A 2023 report by Thales Group, the security consultancy, revealed that only 20% of respondents reported that 60% or more of the data that they host on cloud servers is encrypted. On average, only 45% of sensitive data is encrypted, highlighting that a significant amount of sensitive data remains unencrypted and far more exposed to attack.
Market trends in the technology sector indicate that this is changing. Market Research Future projects that the data encryption market will grow from $13.4 billion in 2022 to $38.5 billion by 2032.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at some encryption technology, how it works, and where some of the threats lie.
How Does Encryption Work?
Encryption ensures that data, whether it be files, messages, or text, remains unobtainable or unreadable to unauthorised users. Encryption uses complex algorithms to parse and scramble packets of data, which can only be unscrambled with a key provided by the owner of the data. Effective encryption maintains the privacy and confidentiality of information in storage or transit, rendering unauthorised access futile as it will only reveal an indecipherable array of bytes.
Encryption Terms
- Algorithm: Also known as a cypher, an algorithm refers to the actual rules or instructions for the encryption process itself. The key length, functionality, and features of the encryption system determine its level of effectiveness.
- Decryption: The process of converting unreadable encrypted data back into readable information for authorised users.
- Key: A randomised string of bits, known as a key, used to encrypt and decrypt data. Each key is unique, with typical key lengths being 128 and 256 bits for private keys and 2048 bits for public keys.
Encryption uses two distinct types of cryptographic key systems:
- Symmetric Key Systems: Everyone accessing the data uses the same key, which must be closely protected to ensure data security. While feasible, securely distributing these keys makes symmetric encryption unsuitable and impractical for widespread commercial use.
- Asymmetric Key Systems: This is a public/private key system that uses two keys: a private key kept secret and a public key that can be made widely available. The private and public keys are linked, so only the private key can decrypt information encrypted with the public key.
Common Encryption Systems
- Triple DES: Triple DES was created to replace an original DES algorithm. It employs three 56-bit keys, totalling 168 bits, but encryption experts often consider its effective key strength to be 112 bits. DES is still common but it has largely been succeeded by AES.
- AES: The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a widely trusted process, used extensively as the standard within the European Union, Canada, USA and other advanced economies. It is highly efficient in its 128-bit form but can use keys of 192 and 256 bits for stronger encryption. AES is considered invulnerable to all but the most sustained brute-force attacks.
- RSA: RSA is a public-key encryption system for online data encryption. It uses a pair of keys, public and private. RSA encryption is very strong and requires intensive resources to hack.
- Blowfish: An encryption technology also designed to replace DES, Blowfish encodes messages into 64-bit blocks for encryption. Known for its speed and effectiveness, Blowfish is widely used throughout technology and software providers and e-commerce platforms
- Twofish: Twofish is a successor to Blowfish and supports keys up to 256 bits. It is one of the fastest algorithms currently freely available and is suitable for both hardware and software environments.
Brute Force Data Attacks
A brute force data attack is a tactic used by attackers to gain unauthorised access to encrypted data or systems by systematically trying every possible combination of passwords or encryption keys in an attempt to find the correct one. This approach relies on computational power and time rather than exploiting vulnerabilities in software or hardware. Manual brute force is time-consuming, and most attackers use brute force attack software and tools to aid them, such as bots. Attackers can attempt inputting numerous password combinations and accessing web applications by searching for the correct session ID, for example.
Homomorphic Encryption
Homomorphic encryption enables computations to be performed directly on encrypted data. This means that data remains encrypted throughout the processing.
When operations are carried out on the encrypted data, the results are also in encrypted form. However, once these results are decrypted, they match the outcomes that would have been achieved if the operations had been conducted on the original, unencrypted data.
Essentially, homomorphic encryption allows for the processing of encrypted data while ensuring that the final results are identical to those obtained from performing the same operations on the decrypted data. It’s an approach that is very similar to blockchain technology. This sort of encryption is embraced by some of the largest players in the technology sector such as Microsoft and IBM, and in the financial sector. The US is the largest market for this technology, followed by the European Union, but it has also seen significant uptake in China and the Pacific. Despite being a relatively new technology, the market is expected to reach almost $270 million before 2030.
For expertise and information on the best cyber and data protection practices for your business, get in touch with us at IT Experts Europe.