A detailed guide to encryption

When you discuss encryption with someone who isn't a security expert, you'll typically get a number of responses. Encryption is frequently misunderstood as some kind of sinister technology. Instead, encryption can help in achieving flexibility, compliance, and data privacy that today's virtual age requires.

Encryption is the process of transforming plain text into ciphertext, or changing readable text into unreadable text, in order to protect data so that only certain people can access it. Encryption scrambles, or encrypts data and then utilises a key to unscramble or decrypt the information for the receiving party. It proves to be a successful method of safeguarding sensitive data. Data on computers and storage devices, as well as data in transit through networks, are all protected with encryption.

Emails can be hacked

Intercepting emails and other content is just one example of a number of incidents that have occurred in less formal methods. While most emails do not pique the curiosity of other parties enough for them to try to intercept it, there have been instances where this has happened. Emails are not encrypted by default as they travel from your servers to the recipient. This implies that if hackers gain access to this information, they will be able to view your emails and confidential information.

Insider threat

According to a data breach report, employees are directly or indirectly responsible for 34 percent of total attacks. Content can be misappropriated by disgruntled employees or contractors for their own or others' benefit. Any intentional loophole can bring down a whole organization with millions of stolen data. This danger can be mitigated by imposing the appropriate set of access rules to keep privileged users in their “swim lanes”. For instance, the Master Key feature eliminates the risk of losing access to critical files. Check out AxCrypt´s Master Key feature here.

Malicious activity by third party

If the data is not encrypted, the most significant consequence will be the compromise of critical or confidential information by a cyber attack or interference of a third party. If protocols aren't in place to identify any kind of behaviour, organisations can lose large amounts of data before realising it.

Cloud vulnerability

With more businesses moving to the cloud, security measures must be constantly checked and updated to protect data from leaks. Despite the fact that cloud programmes like Google or Microsoft are well-equipped with security on their end, the user end is still a major source of erroneous mistakes, malicious software, and fraudulent assaults.

To begin the process of encryption, you need to collect the data you intend to encrypt. The algorithm will then use the encryption key to modify the data in the input and send the result. The output would be a scrambled text that could only be read by the person with the key; you could then transfer the output to the second party via any medium, or preserve the encrypted data for future use. Keys are usually generated with random number generators, or computer algorithms.

AxCrypt allows you to take advantage of virtualization's flexibility while maintaining control over your data. It uniquely removes the barriers to adopting an encryption solution.