Encryption: 6 Ways to Make It Matter

A Security Now special report provides best practice notes for encryption in the enterprise.

2 Min Read

One of the truths exposed by recent events is that data is vulnerable. IT security workers have two tasks to address the situation: Make all data less vulnerable, and make vulnerable data less useful to unauthorized eyes. The road to success at the latter lies along an encrypted path.

When data is properly encrypted, some of the stress around vulnerability is reduced. Even if a hacker manages to put their sticky fingers on the data, it can't make the jump to information -- it remains gibberish to the unauthorized eye.

The critical detail, though, is "properly encrypted." Because, as with most of security, doing something wrong can actually be worse than doing nothing at all because you're now convinced that you've done something about security when the opposite is actually the case.

To help our readers "get it right" we've written a white paper on Best Practices for Encryption. It's a short, simple report on six critical factors involved in making sure that the encryption you deploy is having the maximum impact on your enterprise security.

As with pretty much everything in IT, good encryption practices start with the data -- understanding what you have and what it means to your organization. After that, you need to pay attention to basic details: Don't assume that security is automatic just because you install something with the word "encryption" in the description.

Spend a few minutes with a report that could have a major positive impact on your security. Get our report, "Best Practices for Encryption" and spend a little time for a lot of additional security.

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— Curtis Franklin is the editor of SecurityNow.com. Follow him on Twitter @kg4gwa.

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About the Author

Curtis Franklin, Principal Analyst, Omdia

Curtis Franklin Jr. is Principal Analyst at Omdia, focusing on enterprise security management. Previously, he was senior editor of Dark Reading, editor of Light Reading's Security Now, and executive editor, technology, at InformationWeek, where he was also executive producer of InformationWeek's online radio and podcast episodes

Curtis has been writing about technologies and products in computing and networking since the early 1980s. He has been on staff and contributed to technology-industry publications including BYTE, ComputerWorld, CEO, Enterprise Efficiency, ChannelWeb, Network Computing, InfoWorld, PCWorld, Dark Reading, and ITWorld.com on subjects ranging from mobile enterprise computing to enterprise security and wireless networking.

Curtis is the author of thousands of articles, the co-author of five books, and has been a frequent speaker at computer and networking industry conferences across North America and Europe. His most recent books, Cloud Computing: Technologies and Strategies of the Ubiquitous Data Center, and Securing the Cloud: Security Strategies for the Ubiquitous Data Center, with co-author Brian Chee, are published by Taylor and Francis.

When he's not writing, Curtis is a painter, photographer, cook, and multi-instrumentalist musician. He is active in running, amateur radio (KG4GWA), the MakerFX maker space in Orlando, FL, and is a certified Florida Master Naturalist.

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