The Importance of Cloud Encryption
Cloud deployments are accessible from the public Internet and outside of the traditional network perimeter. As a result, any cloud security gap that allows unauthorized access to an organization’s cloud environment may enable an attacker to read sensitive corporate or customer data. Cloud encryption is important because it offers strong protection against unauthorized access to and misuse of data in the cloud. A strong encryption algorithm scrambles data in a way that renders it unreadable and unusable without the decryption key.
Data encryption is one of the most effective methods of cloud data protection available. In fact, a leak of encrypted data is often not considered a data breach as long as the decryption key remains secure.
How Does Cloud Encryption Work?
Cloud encryption involves encrypting data at all phases of its lifecycle. The three states that data can be in include:
- At Rest: Data stored in databases or on disk.
- In Transit: Data being transmitted between computers (physical or virtual).
- In Use: Data actively being processed by an application.
Cloud encryption typically focuses on protecting data at rest and data in transit. Encryption of data in use is possible with homomorphic encryption algorithms; however, these algorithms are generally too inefficient for general use.
Encryption of data in the cloud works similarly to data encryption in other contexts. First, a shared encryption key is established for all parties with access to the data. Then, all data is encrypted before being written to disk or sent over the network and decrypted when being read from the disk or by its recipient.
Types of Cloud Encryption
Organizations have a few options for encrypting their data in cloud environments. For data at rest, some options include:
- Provider Solutions: Many cloud storage vendors, such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Dropbox, offer their own encryption solutions. Often, these solutions also incorporate built-in key management solutions.
- Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK): BYOK uses encryption solutions offered by the cloud provider. However, the cloud customer manages their own encryption keys, providing a greater level of control over their data.
- Database Encryption: Database encryption encrypts the database files stored in cloud environments. This protects the database from breach even if an attacker gains access to the disk.
- Full-Disk Encryption (FDE): FDE encrypts all of the data stored on a particular disk, including virtual disk images. This makes the entire disk unreadable and unusable to an attacker.
- Virtual Machine (VM) Encryption Solutions: If an organization deploys its own VMs in the cloud, it can use solutions built into those VMs. For example, the organization can take advantage of a full-disk encryption (FDE) solution built into the VM.
- Application-Level Encryption (ALE): ALE allows applications to manage their own data encryption. Encryption functionality is implemented within the application itself, enabling it to tailor encryption to the data’s needs.
Benefits of Cloud Encryption
Encrypting data stored in cloud environments offers numerous benefits to an organization, including the following:
- Reduced Data Breach Risks: Encryption renders data unreadable without the decryption key. This reduces the risk that data will be stolen and abused by an attacker.
- Access Control: Encryption also protects against unauthorized access to an organization’s data. Only users, applications, etc. with a legitimate need for access are provided with the decryption key.
- Data Integrity: Some encryption algorithms offer built-in integrity protection. This can help to identify if data has been corrupted or tampered with by an attacker.
- Cloud Compliance: Many data protection regulations mandate that an organization put security controls in place to manage access to sensitive data. Encryption is often a recommended or required control for these regulations.
Cloud Encryption Challenges
Encryption can be an effective defense for data in the cloud. However, it can be difficult to implement for several reasons, including:
- Resource Utilization: Data encryption adds additional overhead as data must be decrypted before use and encrypted before storage or transmission. This consumes additional cloud resources and can harm application performance.
- Key Management: Encryption makes key management essential to data security. Organizations may struggle to ensure that encryption keys are accessible to legitimate users but protected against unauthorized access.
- Potential Data Loss: Access to the decryption key is essential to using encrypted data. If a key is lost, then the organization also loses access to its data.
- Shared Responsibility Model: In the cloud, a cloud customer lacks full access to its infrastructure stack. This can make it more difficult to implement some data encryption options.
Secure Cloud Infrastructure with Check Point
Data encryption is an essential component of a corporate cloud data security strategy. For more information on building secure cloud infrastructure, check out Check Point’s Cloud Security Blueprint. Learn more about protecting sensitive cloud metadata at rest and in transit and optimizing your cloud security posture with CloudGuard CNAPP.
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