Why all Data should be Encrypted
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Why all Data should be Encrypted
Data is a valuable asset in any organizations. Data stored in organizations include business data, employees, and customer information. Organizations use various approaches to ensure their data is secure. Data is not only important to organizations, but also to cybercriminals. The critical nature of data has been portrayed by the rising data breaches reported annually. Data breaches have significant impacts on organizations, including data loss and fines based on regulatory requirements.
Among the many approaches used to secure, encryption has emerged as one of the effective methods. Encryption provides and additional layer to other methods like firewalls (Basharati, Azam, & Muzaffar, 2012). However, there has been a debate regarding if it is necessary to encrypt all data in an organization or not. Some organizations are hesitant to encrypting their data as they believe that it should be publicly available except for personally identifiable information.
In my opinion, encryption is one of the most powerful tools to protecting data and ensuring intruders cannot access it. Other data security approaches that allow data to be available to the public are effective; however, they do not guarantee security against intruders. Encryption is the only method that protects data on transit. Securing data on the move is the biggest challenge that most organizations face. Therefore, to ensure the date is secure, it is essential to consider encrypting it.
Additionally, it is hard to separate between what is considered sensitive data and what should be made available to everyone. For instance, some sensitive information can be left in a readable format without the security team noticing. Encryption ensures that only authorized people can access information even in situations of equipment loss (Brandao, 2018). This will expose it to the risk of being stolen or manipulated. The nature of data also keeps changing. Data that is considered less important can be vital in the future. Therefore, encrypting it is the only way to ensure information remains secure.
References
Brandao, R.P. (2018). The importance of authentication and encryption in cloud computing
framework security. International Journal on Data Science and Technology, 4(1), 1-5.
Basharati, I., Azam, F., & Muzaffar, W, A. (2012). Database security and encryption: A survey
study. International Journal of Computer Applications, 47(12).