{"id":74723,"date":"2015-02-05T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbachnet.wwwmi3-ss40.a2hosted.com\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2022-08-09T12:16:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T16:16:09","slug":"spies-say-encryption-best-to-protect-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/spies-say-encryption-best-to-protect-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Spies Say Encryption Best to Protect Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated August 01, 2019 –<\/strong> Trump’s top cop U.S. <\/b>Attorney General William Barr rehashed the time-worn government demands<\/a> for private firms to break encryption<\/strong>. AG Barr closed his July 23, 2019 speech at the International Conference on Cyber Security<\/a>, by saying<\/a> that U.S. citizens should accept encryption backdoors<\/strong> because backdoors are essential to our security.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"Spies<\/a>Despite what current US policy appears to be, a newly leaked document courtesy of Edward Snowden<\/a> revealed that some U.S. officials are encouraging the use of encryption to protect data.\u00a0GigaOm<\/a><\/em>\u00a0points<\/a> out a 2009 document penned by the U.S. National Intelligence Council<\/a>,<\/strong> which explained that companies and the government are prone to attacks by nation-states and criminal syndicates \u201cdue to the slower than expected adoption\u2026of encryption and other technologies.\u201d The report detailed a five-year prognosis on the \u201cglobal cyber threat to the US information infrastructure\u201d and stated that encryption<\/strong> technology is the \u201c[b]est defense to protect data<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"750<\/a>Seems that these spooks were right. FierceITSecurity<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reports<\/a> there were 750 major data breaches<\/strong> in the U.S.\u00a0last year, exposing more than 81 million private records<\/strong>. FierceITSecurity<\/em>\u00a0cites data from SysCloud<\/a>, a provider of security and data backup for enterprises which provided the following infographic about data breaches.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"SysCloud<\/a><\/p>\n

\"U.S.\u2019s<\/a>2015 will be worse. The WSJ<\/a><\/em> reports<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0single data breach<\/strong> at the U.S.\u2019s second-biggest health insurer<\/strong>\u00a0Anthem <\/a>Inc., lost personal information for about 80 million<\/strong> of its customers when\u00a0attackers broke into a database. According to the WSJ<\/em>, the breach exposed names, birthdays, addresses, and Social Security numbers. Anthem<\/strong><\/a> said in a statement<\/a> that the affected (plan\/brands) include Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield<\/strong>, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Amerigroup, Caremore, Unicare, Healthlink, and DeCare. Anthem did not encrypt the stolen PII according to reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

GigaOm<\/em> explains that encryption<\/strong> makes it possible for documents and messages to be unreadable to people who don\u2019t have the proper cryptographic key<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"encryption\"<\/p>\n

A cryptographic key is the core part of cryptographic operations which scramble information. Cryptographic systems include pairs of operations, such as encryption and decryption. A key is a part of the variable data that is provided as input to a cryptographic algorithm to execute this sort of operation. The security of the scheme is dependent on the security of the keys used.<\/p>\n

The spooks\u00a0also encouraged multi-factor authentication<\/strong>, which adds another step to the security process beyond simply entering a password.<\/p>\n

\"vocal<\/a>Despite the totally porous nature of online security,\u00a0GigaOm<\/em>\u00a0points out that the Obama administration is a vocal opponent of encryption technology<\/strong>. According<\/a> to Bruce Schneier<\/a>\u00a0the gooberments opposition to encryption on phones is all bluster and sound bites.<\/p>\n

Encryption is no doubt a hot topic in the security space. GigaOm<\/em> says there\u2019s been a wave of security start-ups focusing on encryption scoring millions of dollars in investment in recent months. Security start-ups Veradocs<\/a>,\u00a0CipherCloud<\/a>,\u00a0and Ionic Security<\/a> have recently landed over $100 million in investments.<\/p>\n

Despite political pushback, it\u2019s clear that companies won\u2019t slow down on implementing encryption<\/strong>\u00a0any time soon, so long as large-scale data breaches<\/strong>\u00a0continue to occur on a seemingly weekly basis.<\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Is it time to go back to a cash economy?<\/em><\/p>\n

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