The Importance of Data Encryption
Data encryption is an essential process for safeguarding sensitive information in today’s digital landscape.
As cyber threats continue to evolve, encryption remains a cornerstone of effective data protection strategies. This ensures the confidentiality, integrity, and security of your organisation’s valuable information.
What is Data Encryption?
Data encryption is a security process that converts readable data (plaintext) into an unreadable format (ciphertext) using an algorithm and an encryption key.
The more complex the cryptographic key, the more secure the encryption is. This is because third parties are less likely to decrypt it via brute force attacks, for example trying random numbers until the correct combination is guessed.
Encryption keeps unwanted users from accessing your sensitive information. Discussed below are the main reasons data encryption is important for businesses.
Protecting Sensitive Information
Encryption ensures that data is unreadable to unauthorised users, helping to safeguard sensitive information such as personal details, financial records, and intellectual property.
It helps keep the contents of data secret, verifies the origin of data and validates that the content of the message or data has not been altered since it was sent.
Encryption also helps safeguard any data to ensure malicious actors cannot use it to commit fraud or make damaging changes to important documents.
Regulation Compliance
Regulations such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU require encryption of sensitive data to ensure compliance and avoid hefty fines.
Organisations can reduce the probability of a data breach and reduce the risk of fines in the future if they chose to use encryption of personal data.
Secure Data Transfer
Data is constantly on the move in organisations. This can include anything from internal/external messaging between employees and clients to file transfer and financial transactions.
Data encryption allows organisations to safely transfer all types of data/files safely, either within the organisation or between third parties.
Secure data transfer enhances data privacy by ensuring that sensitive information such as personal details, financial records, and confidential business documents are encrypted.
Builds Trust
Having a high level of data security allows your organisation to gain and build trust with customers. Demonstrating a commitment to data security through encryption fosters trust among customers and business partners.
Being perceived as an organisation with lax data security in place can lead to higher churn rates and a reducing customer base.
Disadvantages of Data Encryption
While the benefits of data encryption outweigh the disadvantages, there are still some that need to be considered:
Complexity:
Implementing high level encryption is often complicated and requires specialised knowledge to ensure it is done correctly.
Cost:
Data encryption solutions are expensive and involve implementation, maintenance, and management costs. This can be particularly costly to small businesses.
UX:
Encryption often complicates the user experience. It often requires additional steps they would not have to take normally to access certain data or accounts. Decryption keys or specific software can make it more difficult for regular users to access data.
Key Management Challenges:
Losing an encryption key can result in data becoming permanently inaccessible to the organisation. Key mismanagement can also lead to further damaging security vulnerabilities.
In the move towards digital transformation, organisations in every industry are realising the need for encryption as a pillar of their cybersecurity suite. Knowing where and how to apply proper encryption strategies can be the difference between a minor cyber-attack and major one with a damaging impact on the organisation’s operations and reputation.
Are you preparing to alter your data management strategy over the next few months? If so, contact us today on +353 1 8041298, or click on the link below to be brought to our contact form.
