How to Secure All that Data
We once used Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham as a way describe where data is…”whether in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse, on a train, in the rain, in a car or on a boat…Wherever the critical data that you manage is located, you need a robust infrastructure to secure and protect it.”
These days, as organizations are juggling resources, remote workers, compliance audits, spikes in demand, expenses, operational issues and more, managing security of all the data coming through your organization is often a balancing act. It takes crypto acuity combined with best-fit solutions to keep your infrastructure securely spinning.
How do organizations go about securing “all that data?” Fortunately, security professionals can deploy and scale a key management solution that best suits their current IT environment challenges by implementing hardware security appliances on-premises, integrating cloud crypto services, or a hybrid combination of both hardware and cloud. David Close, Futurex’s Chief Solutions Architect, wrote about this in Security Magazine.
On-Premises: Highest Level of Control and Compliance
On-premises key management gives organizations complete and isolated control over their encryption keys and certificates. Here are our recommendations for enhancing security with your on-premises data center:
- Ensure data center security controls meet SOC 2 criteria and other industry-specific standards
- Use security appliances with “Puzzle Box” tamper-resistant design
- Implement dual control and split knowledge protocols
- Perform periodic security audit
Shifting Workloads to the Cloud
If your organization is facing scalability issues, interruptions, or access failure, it might be time to extend or rebalance your critical infrastructure beyond your physical premises, to the cloud. Here are our tips for maintaining security in the cloud:
- Implement a Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) approach for cloud data encryption
- Encrypt cloud storage using AES-256 algorithm
- Deploy multi-factor authentication
- Set up and automate a data backup and recovery plan
- Enforce strict user policies for external collaborators
A Hybrid Security Option: Best of Both Worlds
A hybrid cryptographic model combines on-premises hardware with cloud services to handle IT initiatives and scalability. Often, enterprise businesses operating on several continents opt to use a hybrid model to meet organizational mandates, including scenarios where highly sensitive files and data cannot be hosted outside of an on-premises data center or to maintain regional data storage restrictions.
Need help deciding which key management or HSM option is best for you? Sign up for a 1:1 strategy session today with a Futurex Solutions Architect and we can help you determine the best fit your needs.
